Haruma Fund: Impact investment for climate adaptation in agriculture

Partner: Scale for Resilience

Implementation: Gawa Capital, Haruma Fund, AECID (Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation)

System: Rural/ Agriculture, Finance

Scale for Resilience, a Race to Resilience partner, is championing an innovative market-based mechanism to provide solutions to climate and social challenges. This project aims to reduce poverty, and improve people's livelihoods while facilitating access to finances and generating a return for the investors. GAWA Capital, the implementing organization, developed and manages the Huruma Fund which is supporting smallholder farmers from developing countries to improve productivity and increase income by adopting better agricultural practices and receiving access to finance and technical assistance at the same time.

The fund focuses on farmers because they are one of the most vulnerable groups to the climate crisis. On one hand, 80% of the rural population lives in poverty, on the other hand, our changing climate directly impacts in several ways the necessary conditions for food production, threatening livelihoods and food security.

To catalyse investment, the fund procures a blended finance approach, using private and public funds to reduce the risk assumed by private investors, and through a diversified portfolio. The fund largely invests in local microfinance entities with a focus on supporting agriculture, sustainability and the SDGs.

The initiative has raised €120 million that will directly benefit 150,000 smallholder farmers from developing countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Read more here.