Taskforce members, GAIN, have released a new paper on how to unleash private investment for nutritious food value chains in frontier markets. This paper fills an important gap as the first of its kind to highlight the role of blended finance mechanisms to mobilise capital for nutritious foods projects while addressing the challenges and limitations of this approach.
Key messages:
With greater access to financing and technical support, SMEs (which produce the bulk of food consumed in low and middle income countries) can play a larger role in increasing the availability and affordability of safe, nutritious foods
However, there is currently a large funding gap to support SMEs in nutritious food value chains
The growing field of blended finance represents a significant opportunity to leverage public and private financing to incentivise and support these companies to provide more nutritious foods.
Attracting investors to blended finance mechanisms requires: making the case that nutritious food is a compelling theme for investment; identifying viable investment opportunities with SMEs in nutritious food value chains; and developing metrics that allow investors to select the right SMEs and track the social impact of their investments
See more about the new food and land use economy in the “Growing Better” report published by the Taskforce and the Food and Land Use Coalition.