The Cracking the Nut conference aims to accelerate the impact of the world’s leading rural and agricultural development and finance leaders by uniting them in a collaborative pursuit of learning, leverage and large scale change. The conference is named « Cracking the Nut, » as rural and agricultural finance have long been tough nuts to crack. This conference is aimed at practitioners, private sector professionals, policymakers, funders, educators, researchers, and other professionals, who work in the rural and agricultural finance sector.
Participants will have the opportunity to learn about recent approaches to overcoming obstacles to rural and agricultural finance through the following core themes:
- Making Markets Work for Rural and Agricultural Finance: How can we create an enabling environment and overcome policy and market constraints that hinder rural and agricultural development? What role can finance play in facilitating that development? How can we forge linkages between financial institutions and rural enterprises?
- Forging Agricultural Finance Innovations: What are some of the most successful approaches to financing agriculture and how can they be adapted to other environments?
- Reducing Cost of Rural Outreach: What technologies and innovative delivery methods can be applied to reduce transaction costs associated with serving rural areas?
- Managing Risk Effectively: How can risk management be improved to increase access to finance, including savings, insurance, value chain approaches, etc.?
- Attracting Private Investment: What will it take to attract private investors and socially responsible investment funds to support the expansion of rural and agricultural development and finance in developing countries? How can we link green investors to rural and agricultural development?
