Strategy for agricultural transformation in africa

The allocation of the Bank’s financial resources across the different areas of the 
Agricultural Transformation Agenda will be based on two principles that drive an overall 
‘Return on Investment’ philosophy
:

Catalyze additional funding
: although the Bank intends to become a major 
source of catalytic funding, the scale of investments required for the strategy are 
substantial, with approximately US$315bn – US$400bn to be invested to address 
prioritized agricultural commodity value chains, and potentially US$1.8tr to 
pursue full transformation over a 10year horizon. As a result, the Bank aims to 
use blended financing to crowd in private sources of finance – especially from 
capital markets and the African financial sector – to support the scale of 
investments required.

Make investments with high ‘additionality’
: the Bank aims to catalyze inclusive 
agricultural growth, and for some key commodities and target agro-ecological 
zones (e.g. sorghum and millet, and the overall case for transforming the Sahel 
region) the commercial business case for investments across much of the value 
chain, as well as underlying infrastructure, is challenging. These investments 
remain critical to support broad based and systemic agricultural transformation; as 
a result, the Bank will act with additionality, investing into areas likely to remain 
sub-commercial for some time.
4.6 
As a result, the investment strategy of the Bank will be split into two main tracks:
investments of equity, quasi equity, debt and risk instruments to catalyze investments from the 
private sector at the scale required to meet the objectives of the strategy; and the 
complementary provision of grants and concessional loans to sovereign and non-sovereign 
actors to direct capital into areas required to enable full value-chain transformation. Existing 
trust funds and bilateral funds targeting the agricultural sector and housed at the AfDB will 
also be included.
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