Close to 300 million people in Africa are undernourished; one out of every four people on the continent faces food insecurity. Incofin Investment Management, in partnership with Swiss-based foundation Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, or GAIN, has made its first investments from the impact-first debt fund, Nutritious Foods Financing Facility, or N3F, that they launched this year.
Incofin backed Good Nature Agro, which works with roughly 30,000 smallholder farmers in Zambia and Malawi to convert their production from maize to legumes for higher margins and nutritional content; Shalem Investment, a Kenyan agri-processor and distributor of maize and wheat flour to rural communities in low- and middle-income countries where access to nutritious food is a challenge; and Camino Ruiz, also based in Kenya, a distributor of tilapia fish in low-income communities.
Catalytic capital
Each company will receive debt capital of $500,000 to $1 million to support low-income households with nutritious food. GAIN will provide technical assistance. “We believe in the impact potential of these business models operating at different stages of nutritious value chains,” said GAIN’s Roberta Bove.
The N3F, which is seeking an initial $30 million, is backed with $11 million in first-loss capital from investors including the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Over the next decade, the fund aims to generate more than 500 million additional servings of nutritious food, for more than 7 million low-income people.
