1. An abstract of the Rockefeller Foundation supported Project under the Climate Smart for Rural
Development Initiative
Project Title: Launching a Climate-Smart Agricultural Finance Facility (CAFF)
Grant number 2010 CPR 203
Name of the Organization: Forest Trends
Country: U.S.A., working in Ghana and Ethiopia
Name of the Contact Person: Michael Jenkins, President, Forest Trends; Sissel Waage, Director,
Katoomba Group; and John Mason, CEO, NCRC
Email: mjenkins@forest-trends.org; swaage@forest-trends.org; jjmason999@yahoo.com
Telephone: (202) 298 3000 or +233-26-4697485
Key Objectives
Forest Trends, the Katoomba Group, Climate Focus, Unique Forestry Consultants, and the Nature
Conservation Research Center (NCRC-Ghana)—along with additional African partners—are launching a
Climate-Smart Agricultural Finance Facility (CAFF) in Ghana and Ethiopia in order to:
 Demonstrate how to leverage private and public climate finance for African farmers, and
 Develop the operational and financial business models that can channel climate finance to
farmers and facilitate the transition to climate-smart practices.
Key Activities
In Ghana, the CAFF focus on cocoa and tripling the average smallholder’s yield from approximately 300
kg/ha/yr to 900 kg/ha/yr within 3 to 5 years, as has already been demonstrated by some organizations,
albeit with only a small percentage of cocoa farmers. Climate finance has the potential to enable this
transition through addressing the funding gap between know-how and farmer extension.
In Ethiopia, CAFF partners will focus on the coffee sector and doubling productivity on approximately
175,000 ha while enhancing livelihoods and climate resilience of smallholder farms. As operational
capacity grows in Ethiopia’s agricultural sector, this business model could be expanded to include
different commodities such as oil seeds and livestock offering climate and food security benefits for rural
communities.
Key Deliverables
The CAFF initiative will:
 Build capacity within African financial service institution partner(s) in Ghana and Ethiopia to
develop and integrate climate finance products into existing portfolios and rural loan, savings, and
crop insurance products;
 Identify and screen agricultural climate finance opportunities and projects that sequester carbon,
reduce emissions and support the adaptation of agricultural production systems, and
 Establish site-specific carbon project implementation partnerships to provide extension services
as well as monitor performance at scale.
Expected Outcomes
The Climate-smart Agricultural Finance Facility will innovate, test, and document a new set of transaction
models that can be used to access carbon and climate finance sources for smallholder farmer-driven
agricultural climate mitigation and adaptation projects. The Facility will serve as a catalyst for developing
appropriate governance, finance, as well as measurement, reporting, and verification approaches (MRV)
for agricultural systems in developing countries.