Building Capacity for Social Compliance of Investments in Agriculture in Africa

The Africa Agriculture and Trade Investment Fund (AATIF), emerged through a private-public partnership initiated by KfW on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and Deutsche Bank. It aims to realize the potential of Africa’s agriculture for the benefit of the poor. AATIF pursues a private sector approach addressing the specific needs of the agricultural sector in a market-oriented way while its social and environmental management system and strong governance structure with an independent compliance advisor safeguard a positive development impact. Especially regarding social effects, AATIF felt that more has to be done than defining standards in order to mitigate social and environmental risks. Building new partnerships, especially signing the collaboration agreement with the ILO as the Fund’s Compliance Advisor, has helped AATIF to establish a credible framework for impact investments.