by Saulius Ramanauskas -

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: BIC-BRED, FMO Commit $30m in Working Capital for Sucafina to Expand Coffee Purchases from Smallholder Farmers in Africa, Colombia

Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden (FMO), a Dutch development bank, recently agreed to fund half of a USD 30 million facility provided by the Swiss bank Banque Internationale de Commerce-Banque Régionale d’Escompte et de Dépôt (BIC-BRED) to Sucafina, a Switzerland-based coffee trader. The deal is meant to support Sucafina’s origination activities in East Africa and Colombia and in this way

by Tiannah Steele -

MICROFINANCE PAPER WRAP UP: “Protecting Growing Prosperity: Agricultural Insurance in the Developing World;” from ISF Advisors

This is a summary of a paper published by the Initiative for Smallholder Finance (ISF) Advisors, based on research by Matt Shakhovskoy and Romit Mehta, September 2018, 30 pages, available at:
https://www.raflearning.org/sites/default/files/sep_2018_isf_syngneta_insurance_report_final.pdf

The authors of this paper discuss how agricultural insurance can help smallholder farmers recover from damage to crops and livestock caused by shocks such as extreme weather conditions. According to previous research by ISF, “globally less than