Webinar | When Technical Assistance Meets Finance
Date: 5 May 2026
Time: 14:00 – 15:00 (CEST)
Location: Zoom (registration required)
About the Webinar
Too often, technical assistance (TA) and finance operate in separate worlds.
Farmer organizations and agribusinesses receive training, coaching, and support. But when it comes to real lending decisions, many still remain invisible, unproven, or not finance ready.
That raises an uncomfortable question: Are we just investing in “more support” or in support that actually helps unlock better financial outcomes?
In AgriGRADE’s webinar, our guests from Aceli Africa were Richard Midikira, Associate Director of Innovation & Partnerships, and Karen Chege, manager of TA. Together with Cees van Rij, AgriGRADE’s Director, they explored why this gap persists and debated what it takes to build a more market-driven support system that connects TA, business development services (BDS), and finance more effectively.
This was a talkshow-style webinar: fewer slides, more conversation, more practical insight, and more space for real questions.
What We Covered
- The limits of traditional TA models
- Why incentives and market signals matter
- How TA can be better integrated with capital supply
- What this means for farmer organizations, lenders, and support providers
- How system building can help move from subsidy dependence to smarter, more effective support
Aceli Africa answers your questions
We loved hearing all of your questions from the audience. We didn’t have time to get to them all during the presentation, so Richard and Karen have responded below:
1. How does Aceli Africa determine the credit line for an SME? What are the main areas of your support to SMEs? Which value chains do you normally fund, and what are your experiences in supporting exporting cooperatives?
On credit lines: Aceli Africa does not lend to SMEs and therefore does not determine credit lines. Our role is to incentivize financial institutions to expand their lending to agri-SMEs.
On the SME side: We focus on business model clarity, financial management, and operational systems to improve investment readiness and capital utilization.
On value chains: We work across multiple agricultural value chains, with a focus on SMEs that link smallholder farmers to markets and contribute to job creation.
On cooperatives: We have provided tailored technical assistance to cooperatives that goes beyond investment readiness. Some of the areas covered include governance, regulatory compliance, financial management, aggregation models, market access, and farmer-level traceability. Because they operate as both businesses and member-based organizations, the focus is not just on making them creditworthy, but on ensuring they are well coordinated, transparent, and commercially viable.
2. How long does Aceli Africa take to assess the credibility of an SME for financing?
Since we do not fund SMEs directly, our role under the TA program is to ensure that businesses are well prepared and aligned with lender requirements so they can successfully interact with lenders and access financing.
On timelines, well-prepared SMEs can establish credibility in as little as 3–6 weeks. However, for most SMEs, especially where financial systems are weak, it typically takes 3–5 months to reach a reasonable level of readiness, depending on their level of engagement and proactiveness. There are other factors beyond the scope of the TA intervention that could affect readiness for financing, e.g., availability of collateral.
3. How can we work together (TA) in Uganda with Aceli Africa?
Thank you for your interest. We are open to partnerships, and you can contact us—Richard or Karen—via kchege@aceliafrica.org and rmidikira@aceliafrica.org.
4. What do you mean by financial literacy for an SME? Do you mean having audited books of account?
Financial literacy here refers to knowledge of the tools and practices that can support the growth and resilience of the business or entrepreneur. It is not just about audited books of accounts, but also practices such as separation of personal and business accounts, budgeting, use of insurance, savings and investment products, knowledge of various financing options, and when to access them, etc.
5. How do you balance the cost of TA so that it doesn’t outweigh the benefits for smaller facilities (e.g., under $10,000), and who typically bears that cost—the lender, the donor, or the SME?
For smaller facilities, the key is calibrating the intensity of TA to the size of the opportunity. That means lighter-touch delivery, group-based sessions, simple diagnostic tools, and a sharp focus on the constraints that matter most to a lending decision.
On cost-bearing: TA at this stage is predominantly donor-funded because it addresses a market gap that neither lenders nor SMEs can yet fully absorb. The long-term ambition is to shift toward a more sustainable model where lenders increasingly recognize the value, contribute to the cost, and—with more efficient delivery mechanisms—bring the cost per SME down over time. We are starting to see some progress, with lenders willing to contribute to TA, and we plan to scale this across our partners over time.
6. Did Aceli Africa have to reform any central bank regulations to encourage more lenders to finance the sector?
No, but we published a paper that spotlights central bank policies that constrain financing of the sector. We have also mapped out policy priorities across our countries and are working through bankers’ associations and central banks to address them. Examples include classification of agricultural loans and treatment of guarantees.
7. What is Aceli Africa’s financing model for SMEs? What does your portfolio look like? Are you specific about value chains and market segments?
To clarify: Aceli Africa does not finance SMEs. We offer incentives to financial institutions to cover the risks and costs of lending to SMEs.
On the portfolio: We work with more than 50 lenders, mostly commercial banks, but also non-bank financial institutions with an agri-SME focus. We support loans between $10,000 and $1.5 million and are value-chain agnostic, with exceptions for tobacco and other activities on the IFC exclusion list.
8. How do you co-design the right incentives for lenders, and how do you plan to scale this?
Our incentive design is informed by research that identified and quantified the risk and cost barriers across portfolios from multiple lenders. This enabled us to design and deploy incentives across markets and lender types.
Before signing any lender onto the incentives program, we review their portfolio and target incentives to underserved segments (e.g., new borrowers or food value chains where applicable). We also conduct an annual benchmarking exercise to assess portfolios and determine any necessary adjustments to our incentives
9. In your model, the entry point appears to be alignment with lender appetite, after which suitable value chains or crops are identified. How would you approach structuring an intervention where a technical assistance donor prefers specific food crops that do not align with lenders’ risk appetite or portfolio priorities? How do you manage the trade-offs and sequencing to ensure both development objectives and lender buy-in are achieved?
Aceli’s model provides higher incentives for lending that addresses a range of development objectives, such as food security and nutrition, climate action, and gender inclusion, among others. We are value-chain agnostic, allowing lenders to determine where they will direct their investments. Aceli pays for impact, and lenders determine how this impact will be realized, in alignment with their strategies.
We appreciate that this is at odds with how much of the donor world operates, but given our role as a market catalyst, we are careful to maintain a market-led approach in how we engage with lenders. The same principle is applied in the lender-led TA program: lenders pre-select SMEs based on their priorities, we screen to assess fit and alignment with impact objectives, and then deliver the TA. The development objectives remain, but the pathway is determined by the lender.
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