Who We Are
The AECF is a development institution which supports businesses to innovate, create jobs, leverage investments and markets in an effort to create resilience and sustainable incomes in rural and marginalized communities in Africa. Launched in 2008, the AECF has mobilized over US $356 million to date, leveraging more than US $658 million in matching capital and improving the lives of more than 16 million people in 2017 alone through jobs and increased household incomes. AECF has so far supported 268 companies in 26 countries in sub-Saharan Africa across 40 value chains in our focal sectors of agribusiness and renewable energy.
In the new 2018-2020 strategy, our goal is to “double our impact in half the time”. To achieve this, we will continue to focus on the agribusiness and renewable energy sectors, increase support to climate smart technologies, refine our challenge model, expand regional presence, deepen focus on gender, youth and employment by expanding our products and partnership approach to better meet our investees’ current needs; and ensure they rapidly scale and transition to external financing and sustainability thereby attaining our vision of ‘A Prosperous and Enterprising Rural Africa’
Areas of Investment
The AECF targets investments in the following sectors:
- Agriculture and agribusiness
- Renewable energy and adaptations to climate change
- Rural financial services and communications systems that support the two sectors
Our History
The AECF was launched at the World Economic Forum Africa in 2007 and become operational in 2008 to respond to the need for an Africa based fund that would support African business, particularly in the areas of finance and agriculture. It begun with a start-up capital from the United Kingdom and Dutch Governments, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
The AECF launched the first competition in 2008 and since then it has grown to be one of the largest challenge funds in Africa. Over the past 10 years, the AECF has conducted 27 competitions, received over 10,000 applications and approved funding to 266 business projects
