ImpactSF Analyzer expands to Cambodia and Laos

Following the successful testing of the ImpactSF Analyzer with LandBank in the Philippines in 2023, and the presentation of these results to multiple banks across the ASEAN region in early 2024, ASEAN-CGIAR Innovate for Food and Nutrition Security Regional Program’s Intervention Package 6 (IP6) is expanding its activities to banks in Cambodia and Laos.

Banking institutions in Cambodia and Laos have requested support in the use of ImpactSF Analyzer to co-design new financial products, aimed to de-risk agriculture lending, but also generate social and environmental impacts from their agriculture lending portfolio.

In 2024, outputs from the ImpactSF Analyzer will be used to target, and conduct initial market research, all of which will contribute to the design of new agriculture lending products. Together with scaling experts from WorldFish and the International Water Management Institute, the focus will be to cost the adoption and quantify the benefits/returns for specific de-risking, and impact-generating climate-smart agriculture/aquaculture practices, not only for the farmers but for all value chain stakeholders, such as off-takers, input suppliers, and insurance service providers, among others.

Through this work, IP6 aims to create a “functioning” value chain and make it attractive for banking institutions to lend. More importantly, a functioning value chain will also improve the ability of small-scale farmers to repay loans.

In 2024, IP6 will also work with banking institutions across the ASEAN region to validate the outputs of the ImpactSF Analyzer, by assessing the relationships between repayment defaults and risks/productivity losses obtained from the ImpactSF Analyzer.

The overarching objective of IP6 is to de-risk agriculture lending for financial institutions by integrating climate/environmental parameters into risk assessments while accelerating financial flows to small-scale farmers and related value chain stakeholders to adopt and continue integrating climate-smart agriculture/aquaculture practices into their farming systems.