The Region of Opportunities: Sustainable Finance in Africa

By: Godefroy Grosjean

Last week, more than 3,000 delegates, including several African presidents, ministers and CEOs, met in Dar Es Salam, Tanzania’s largest city, for Africa’s Food System Forum (AGRF) to discuss Africa’s Solutions to build better and more inclusive food systems. I had the privilege to be one of them, representing the CGIAR Hub for Sustainable Finance (ImpactSF), which connects CGIAR‘s science with the needs of investors.

Here are key insights I gained from these high-level discussions.

One of the slogans visible during the conference was from the host country “The Land of Opportunities”. While this is certainly the case for the country, the week confirmed to me, as was also emphasized by various participants[1] , that Africa is the Region of Opportunities. I met inspiring entrepreneurs, leading companies, and businesses of all sizes ranging from agrifood firms, input providers, aggregators to agtech and fintech. The business scene in food and agriculture is bubbling across the continent, and investors would miss opportunities not to pay closer attention to it.