What CASA Does

CASA demonstrates the business case for global and national investment in climate-resilient agri-food systems that increase smallholder farmer incomes by building inclusive business models.

Market Systems Development

The CASA Market Systems Development team works within seven agriculture value chains in Ethiopia, Malawi, Nepal and Rwanda (and formerly Uganda). It supports agri-SMEs to prepare for and secure investment while growing their smallholder farmer supply chains, connecting farmers to commercial markets and increasing their incomes, and building resilience in the face of climate change. CASA provides agri-SMEs with technical assistance and grants to demonstrate their commercial viability and investment-readiness. The CASA country teams attract investment into the agri-food sector, boosting economic growth and raising demand for smallholder produce, by:

  • Understanding and implementing successful inclusive business models that can become impactful and profitable investments
  • Showcasing agri-SMEs that profitably source produce from smallholders
  • Increasing the pipeline of investment-ready agri-SMEs through the provision of pre- and post-investment technical assistance, and
  • Strengthening value chains by understanding and addressing bottlenecks, thus enabling stakeholders, including smallholder farmers, to maximise their returns while improving the resilience of food systems.

The Market Systems Development component of CASA is delivered by:

Swisscontact Logo

Technical Assistance Facility

The CASA Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) supports agribusinesses that work with smallholder farmers in countries across Africa and Asia, helping them to grow in ways that drive meaningful benefits for farmers in the form of increased incomes, jobs, and resilience to climate change. CASA TAF does this by partnering with some of the largest development investors in the agriculture sector to provide technical assistance to their portfolio companies. The approach involves a deep dive into selected large-scale agribusinesses to draw up inclusive business plans. These become roadmaps for the agribusinesses to strengthen their supply chains, deliver commercial and social value to smallholder farmers and shareholders, and promote returns, development impact and resilience to climate change.

CASA TAF also offers tailored technical advisory services to the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) posts across Africa and Asia, as part of the UK Green and Inclusive Growth Centre of Expertise, with the aim of catalysing more and better investment in the agriculture sector and supporting agriculture commercialisation in an inclusive, sustainable and climate-resilient way.

CASA TAF also includes the CASA Plus Trust Fund, which is co-funded by BII and FMO. CASA Plus provides technical assistance and advisory to impact investors, agribusinesses and donors, with the aim of:

  • attracting more investment into the agricultural sector
  • improving the commercial performance and development impact of existing investments, and
  • increasing the climate and economic resilience of smallholder households across Africa and Asia.

The Technical Assistance Facility component of CASA is delivered by:

Research, Learning and Communications

To fill the information and evidence gaps holding back investment, CASA Research, Learning and Communications, previously implemented by CABI, carries out research and communications activities to identify constraints, opportunities and evidence gaps; shapes debates on smallholder / agribusiness models to influence investors, governments and donors; and creates networking opportunities through events and stakeholder engagement.

Now implemented by NIRAS, the CASA Research, Learning and Communications team currently focuses on disseminating and communicating about the learning from the implementation experiences of the CASA Programme. The team:

  • Commissions and produces demand-led research that addresses evidence and learning gaps, and disseminates CASA publications as Case Studies, Stories of Change, and Learning Papers
  • Supports learning and communications activities across the programme components and in the four Market Systems Development countries
  • Organises and supports learning workshops and investor engagement events and meetings
  • Maintains the CASA programme website, and
  • Commissions and manages the biannual FCDO Commercial Agriculture Portfolio Review. 

The Research, Learning and Communications component of CASA is delivered by:

Aceli Africa

Aceli Africa is a market catalyst designed to unlock increased private sector lending for agricultural small and medium enterprises (SME) in East Africa. FCDO funding under the CASA Programme contributes to:

  • Scaling activities in Kenya and Rwanda to reach underserved high-impact businesses
  • Supporting the development and testing of new financial products and distribution channels
  • Collating learning among all five FCDO posts that contribute to Aceli (Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia)

CFC Graduation Fund

This joint fund between FCDO and the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) supports small, sustainable agribusinesses across sub-Saharan Africa. The fund will:

  • Unlock investment for smaller agri-SMEs who cannot absorb funding above $500k
  • Test how such funding could be provided at scale
  • Potentially sustain high-potential agri-SMEs until they are capable of absorbing larger investments through other CFC Funds

Financing for Agri-SMEs in Africa

FASA is a fund-of-funds which aims to unlock financing for agricultural small and medium enterprises (SME) across Africa, by supporting investment funds that are active in the sector. It is a multi-donor fund, including contributions from the FCDO under the CASA Programme, and was established by NORAD (Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation) and USAID (US Agency for International Development). The Fund aims to:

  • Address the financing gaps for agri-SMEs, whereby they are too large for microfinance and too small for traditional financial institutions
  • Support with capacity building needs within food systems by providing catalytic capital and technical assistance support to investment funds that will lend to, or invest in, agri-SMEs across Africa

The FASA fund is managed by:

Legacy Components

To complement the work of the main components, in past years CASA provided smaller grants to specialist non-profit organisations for global policy and action-oriented research related to agri-food value chains, agri-SMEs, investors, smallholder farmers and rural communities in target countries. These grants included support to: