Recommendation 21

HM Government Accepted

Government Response – Partially Agree 34. The Government recognises that inclusive and well-targeted finance is critical to achieving strong development outcomes and to supporting sustainable growth of agrifood sectors in low-income countries. The UK is working with partners to help unlock more and better targeted finance from all sources for the SDGs and we will use the Financing for Development Conference in June, and other relevant events, to push for reform of the global financial system to this effect. 35. The UK is working to catalyse better targeted private investment in the agrifood sector and increase access to finance for small agribusinesses and smallholder farmers through our programmes and investments. This includes contributing to the new Financing Agri-SMEs in Africa (FASA) Fund and funding a new £20m local currency pilot through the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP). This builds on longstanding work by the UK Government to mobilise investment in low-income country agrifood sectors through the Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness (CASA) programme and our support to AgDevCo. 36. Furthermore, the UK will look to continue to work with partners to explore innovative and more sustainable ways to finance nutrition. As co-founders of the Child Nutrition Fund (CNF) with UNICEF, the UK played an important role in setting up a new funding mechanism to support government-led initiatives to treat and end malnutrition and wasting in women and children. In addition, through our support to the Access to Nutrition Initiative, we have helped investors take nutrition more seriously in their financing decisions. The UK will continue to push International Financial Institutions, including the regional development banks, to do more to leverage nutrition financing.