The Global Environment Facility invests USD 13.5 million in AGRI3 Fund

As more land is cultivated and production is increasingly industrialized, agriculture has contributed significantly to deforestation, habitat loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and soil and water pollution. With the GEF investment of USD 13.5 million into AGRI3 Fund, we expect to continue our partnership involving the banking sector to catalyze transformational forest conservation, climate-smart agriculture, and degraded land restoration.The partnership of this project is critical as the financial sector faces substantial difficulties in providing the solutions needed by farmers to change to more sustainable practices. The GEF partnership connects 184 member governments with civil society, Indigenous Peoples, and the private sector, and works closely with other environmental financiers for efficiency and impact. To date, the GEF has provided more than $22 billion in grants and blended finance and mobilized another $120 billion in co-financing for more than 5,000 national and regional projects, plus 27,000 community ventures through its Small Grants Programme.ABOUT AGRI3 FUND: The AGRI3 Fund was created by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Rabobank, together with partners IDH and FMO, the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank, to support the transition to sustainable agriculture. The Fund works with commercial banks, development finance institutions (DFIs), impact investors and institutional investors and provides credit enhancement tools and technical assistance to projects which actively prevent deforestation, stimulate reforestation, contribute to efficient sustainable agricultural production and value chains and reduce carbon emissions and improve rural livelihoods.