Issue paper
Agricultural investment funds for development. Descriptive analysis and lessons learned from fund management, performance and private–public collaboration
This publication explores agricultural investment funds as a vehicle for financing agricultural businesses and projects. It looks at the capital needs of the different agricultural actors along the agricultural value chain and taking into consideration investment funds involving all kinds of investors (private, public as well as joint initiatives) and investment objectives. The publication draws heavily from the FAO 2010 publication “Agricultural Investment Funds for Developing Countries”, which was developed from an FAO-ConCAP research study that identified a broad range of investment funds that target agriculture in developing and transitioning countries. The identified funds were classified according to various criteria such as geographic distribution, capital, shareholder and investor base, investment instruments, target group served and financial performance, as well as organizational and operational structure. In this context, 63 agricultural investment funds fitting the selection criteria were identified and used in this study.