Abstract:
African agriculture needs to adapt to climate change and shift from unsustainable production
practices to sustainable ones. This requires innovative, substantial, and long-term agricultural
investments that can allow all agricultural actors to adopt sustainable agricultural practices. Better
and more inclusive options to leapfrog Africa’s sustainable agricultural development lie in financial
technologies (FinTech). FinTech uses digital technology innovations to ease the provision of financial
services to users and thus enhance financial inclusion. The aim of this study is to clarify the important
role that FinTech can play in financing sustainability in agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
To examine this role, the study shortlisted 17 SSA countries. The literature on FinTech-enhanced
agricultural initiatives in these countries was reviewed. The results confirm that FinTech has the
opportunity to become the much needed ‘support system’ for sustainable agriculture in SSA. Most of
the financial products accessed by smallholder farmers in the selected countries helped the farmers
in addressing production and marketing challenges in agriculture. The technologies can also help
to improve efficiency in financing smallholder agriculture, enabling wider adoption of sustainable
agricultural practices. To promote the financing of sustainable agriculture at scale, there is a need
to train the farmers about the functionality of digital platforms, and policymakers need to address
challenges such as gaps in infrastructure between the urban and rural areas.
