Cocoa and coffee are climate-sensitive commodities cultivated by smallholder farmers across Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Guatemala, Nigeria, Peru, Rwanda, and Uganda. They face increasing risks from climate variability, land degradation, and tightening regulatory requirements. Pre-harvest finance remains structurally underprovided, as commercial lenders rarely extend unsecured credit in rural emerging markets, while cooperatives and exporters lack the financial resources to support farmers year-round. Climate finance has typically prioritised large infrastructure programmes rather than value chain operations, leaving a persistent gap.
The FSF ACCT programme scales sustainability-linked working capital and technical assistance for enterprises operating in cocoa and coffee landscapes across the ten countries, building on a strategy tested through the Food Securities Fund (FSF). It provides short-term renewable working capital loans to midstream enterprises sourcing from smallholder farmers, paired with targeted technical assistance on climate-smart practices, traceability, and gender inclusion.
The programme is structured around two components: an investment facility providing working capital loans linked to annual environmental and social due diligence; and a technical assistance facility supporting borrowers across environmental, social, and business resilience themes. Demand-side actors, including large multinational agribusinesses, provide additional risk mitigation through guarantees at the sub-project level.
The programme was developed under GCF's Project-specific Assessment Approach (PSAA).
