Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF)

aecfafrica.org

AECF (Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund) is a leading non-profit development organization that supports innovative enterprises in the agribusiness and renewable energy sectors with the aim of reducing rural poverty, promoting resilient communities, and creating jobs. We catalyze the private sector by surfacing and commercializing new ideas, business models, and technologies designed to increase agricultural productivity, improve farmer incomes, expand clean energy access, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve resilience to the effects of climate change. We finance high-risk businesses that struggle to access commercial funding; we are committed to working in frontier markets, fragile contexts, and high-risk economies where few mainstream financing institutions dare to go. Over the course of 16 years, we have supported 510 businesses in 26 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, impacted more than 33 million lives, created over 35,000 direct jobs, and leveraged US $838 million in matching funds.