Mercy Corps Agri Fin Portfolio

The Challenge

The goal of Mercy Corps’ AgriFin portfolio is to help organizations design, test and scale digitally-enabled services for Africa’s smallholder farmers.

They work with over 14 million farmers and 150 partners across Africa and aim to increase farmer income, productivity and resilience, with 50% outreach to women. Mercy Corps sought an easy way to understand the impact of ten of its portfolio companies on these metrics.

The Solution

In just four months, we spoke to over 2,500 farmers in Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria through phone surveys, to understand the impact of 9 private social enterprises and 1 government-led institution within the portfolio on farmers

• Identified 8 indicators to visualize Agrifin’s social and operational performance
• Compared the portfolio’s average performance against 60+ organizations that make up our wider agricultural benchmark

The Impact

Mercy Corps validated that the AgriFin portfolio is reaching an underserved population with unique products and services that create positive impact and improved climate resilience for farmers. They determined that they would continue to seek partnerships providing bundled farming and finance services, while also investigating which farmer acquisition channels can be made more gender-inclusive.