NAIROBI, Kenya — Africa must move beyond short-term, donor-funded digital agriculture projects and build sustainable financing models that enable proven solutions to grow, reach more smallholder farmers and continue delivering value long after programme funding ends.
This was the central message at the 10th AgriFin Learning Event (ALE2026), which opened in Nairobi on Tuesday, October 27.
Convened by Prosper Global AgriFin, formerly Mercy Corps AgriFin, the one-day forum brought together policymakers, development partners, financial institutions, researchers, agribusinesses, technology innovators and farmer representatives to examine how evidence can guide the next phase of digital agriculture across Africa.
Held under the theme “Leveraging Evidence for Connected, Scalable and Inclusive Digital Agriculture,” the event explored how technology, finance, partnerships and market systems can work together to improve smallholder farmers’ productivity, access to credit and markets, and resilience to climate and economic shocks.
The discussions came at a time when development finance to the Global South is under pressure, raising urgent questions about how digital agricultural services can remain accessible and affordable while attracting the investment needed to sustain and scale them.
From a decade of innovation to systems that last
Opening the event, Melaku Yirga, Vice President – Africa at Prosper Global, challenged participants to look beyond individual projects and focus on the systems needed to sustain successful innovations.
“We’ve spent years testing ideas, building partnerships and learning what works. So the real question now is: how do we turn all of that into systems that can actually last and scale?” he said in a statement seen by News9.africa.
Since its establishment in 2012, AgriFin has worked to understand how digital technology, particularly mobile phones, can improve the lives and livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Its early work examined how mobile technology could support farmers in Africa and Asia, including through digital financial and information services.
In 2015, support from the Mastercard Foundation enabled the programme to investigate how digital agricultural innovations could be accelerated across Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia, markets with different levels of mobile ecosystem maturity.
The experience helped inform approaches to supporting innovators delivering digital financial services and agricultural information to smallholder farmers.
A subsequent phase, supported by the Gates Foundation and the Bayer Foundation, among other partners, focused on taking proven solutions to scale across five African countries: Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.
With a target of reaching five million smallholder farmers, the programme has surpassed that ambition, reaching more than 8.5 million farmers through digital information services, with women accounting for 41% of those reached.
For Yirga, the next phase of agricultural development must build on these lessons, translating evidence into better decisions, stronger partnerships and investments that respond to the realities of farmers and markets.
Digital technology can help reduce the risks of agricultural investment
While digital services have expanded access to information and financial tools, investment in smallholder agriculture remains constrained by the risks and costs associated with serving fragmented rural markets.
Sieka Gatabaki, Program Director at Prosper Global AgriFin, said mobile technology has significant potential to improve farmers’ access to information and financial services, but adoption and practical value must remain central to scaling these solutions.
“We must incentivise farmers to adopt these digital tools like mobile money that holds key to broadening their revenue streams,” Gatabaki said.
He noted that technologies such as artificial intelligence could help farmers access information on changing weather patterns, agricultural practices and different sources of capital, while mobile platforms can support financial inclusion and make services more accessible in rural areas.
The programme’s experience also points to the importance of understanding what drives adoption across different markets.
Current areas of work include testing incentives for digital payments, strengthening public-private partnerships to improve the delivery of public services, and helping agricultural technology businesses access the capital they need to grow.
Gatabaki highlighted the challenges facing agricultural investment, including unpredictable weather, limited infrastructure, digital exclusion and the high cost of reaching individual smallholder farmers.
These factors have historically increased the perceived risk of lending to or investing in agriculture. Digital technologies can help address some of these barriers by improving weather forecasting, extending access to agricultural advice and supporting more informed decisions.
Better information can help farmers anticipate risks while giving service providers and investors a stronger basis for assessing agricultural opportunities.
However, technology alone will not resolve these challenges. Solutions must be supported by trusted local relationships, appropriate infrastructure, accessible services and financing arrangements that make commercial sense.
Partnerships are essential to sustaining digital services
As some existing programmes approach completion, Prosper Global AgriFin is positioning the next phase of its work as a transition towards new initiatives that build on the relationships, evidence and delivery systems established over the past decade.
Jasmina Lipovic, Global Finance Operations & Compliance Director at Prosper Global AgriFin, stressed that the end of a programme should not mean the end of the services and relationships it has helped establish.
“This is a transition, not an endpoint,” she said.
Lipovic explained that AgriFin had worked to establish strong relationships with banks, agribusinesses and technology companies so that digital services could continue reaching smallholder farmers beyond the initial funding period.
In response to a more constrained funding environment, the programme has also been adapting its operations, strengthening strategic partnerships and diversifying its programming and funding sources.
The aim is to sustain quality service delivery while building on the progress made through existing programmes.
Elias Nure, Global Digital Climate Smart Agriculture Director at Prosper Global AgriFin, also underscored the need to strengthen public-private partnerships and make better use of the relationships that established organisations already have with farming communities.
Such partnerships can help connect farmers to public resources, data and information in formats that are easier to understand and use.
They can also build on existing trust between farmers, service providers and institutions, reducing the barriers that often prevent new solutions from gaining traction.
The wider challenge, speakers noted, is to align public resources, private investment, technology and local delivery networks around shared outcomes rather than treating them as separate interventions.
Building the connections that keep innovation moving
Sheena Raikundalia, an innovation ecosystem leader, challenged participants to consider what happens when a project ends and how the wider system can continue supporting farmers.
Her presentation emphasised the need to connect the elements that make digital agriculture work: finance, infrastructure, technology, markets, farmers and the institutions that support them. Rather than investing only in individual innovations, stakeholders need to strengthen the relationships and systems that allow these components to work together.
Raikundalia also urged a practical approach to artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. Digital tools should address real problems in farmers’ lives and respond to local needs, rather than being introduced simply because the technology is available.
This approach places the farmer at the centre of innovation, with success measured by whether solutions improve access to useful information, finance, markets and services—and whether those benefits can be sustained.
Evidence must guide what gets scaled
For development partners, the challenge is not simply to fund more innovation, but to identify which solutions deliver meaningful results and have the potential to grow sustainably.
Stefan Wilhelm, Director of Social Innovation and Head of Latin America and Africa at the Bayer Foundation, brought this perspective to the discussion, highlighting the importance of evidence in guiding investment decisions.
“So, what does the evidence tell us about where we should go next?” he asked.
The discussion emphasised the need to look beyond activity and output figures to understand what works, for whom and under what conditions.
Evidence should help partners assess which models are ready to scale, where additional support is needed and how investment can generate lasting value for farmers and agricultural markets.
This is particularly important as funding becomes more constrained and development partners face difficult choices about where their resources can have the greatest impact.
In a video message, Amath Pathe Sene, Managing Director of the Africa Food Systems Forum, similarly challenged stakeholders to confront whether digital farming solutions can remain viable once a funding cycle ends.
He pointed to the potential of digital tools, including artificial intelligence, to improve farmers’ access to markets, credit, weather information and sound agronomic practices when deployed effectively.
Responding to climate shocks and strengthening farmer resilience
The need for sustainable digital agriculture is especially urgent as smallholder farmers face increasingly complex risks, including climate-related disasters, pests and diseases, volatile markets, high input costs and declining soil health.
Participants emphasised that farmers need timely and reliable information to make decisions, anticipate shocks and protect their livelihoods.
Digital weather services, improved agricultural advice and accessible financial products can support these decisions, but only when services reach farmers in ways they can understand, trust and afford.
With climate pressures continuing to affect agricultural production and rural incomes, stronger collaboration among public institutions, private companies, development partners and farmer organisations will be essential to ensure that digital solutions contribute to resilience as well as productivity.
The discussions also reinforced the importance of mobilising domestic resources and creating policy and regulatory incentives that encourage private-sector participation and blended finance.
These approaches could help reduce dependence on external funding while creating stronger conditions for inclusive digital services to grow.
A new phase focused on scale and sustainability
As the 10th AgriFin Learning Event marks a decade of learning and implementation, the message from participants is that the next phase of digital agriculture must be defined by more than the number of innovations developed or farmers reached.
It must also be measured by whether useful services continue after projects close, whether farmers can afford and benefit from them, whether private and public actors have incentives to sustain delivery, and whether evidence is being used to direct resources towards solutions that work.
For Prosper Global AgriFin and its partners, the priority is to build on the progress already made, strengthen the connections between finance, technology and markets, and create the conditions for digital agricultural services to deliver lasting benefits for smallholder farmers across Africa.
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