Scaling up Agri-Finance in Ethiopia
About NAFIR
The National Agricultural Finance Implementation Roadmap (NAFIR) is the Government of Ethiopia’s flagship implementation framework to transform agricultural finance from fragmented interventions into a coherent, scalable, and market-enabling national system.
The roadmap was launched jointly by the National Bank of Ethiopia and the Ministry of Agriculture in July 2025 as a strategic coordination framework under which all agri-finance will be implemented.
While agriculture remains central to Ethiopia’s economy, access to appropriate, affordable, and scalable financial services for farmers and agricultural value chain actors has remained constrained by risk perception, weak coordination, and limited financial infrastructure.
NAFIR was conceptualized from various agricultural and financial sector strategies and roadmaps such as the National Financial Inclusion Strategy, the ten year development plan, HGER, and agricultural sectoral strategies.
To build a dynamic, specialized, digitized and data-driven agri-finance landscape with inclusive offline entry points for digitally excluded actors.
To strengthen, scale up, and modernize agricultural finance in Ethiopia, enabling an efficient, resilient, sustainable and inclusive agri-finance system.
Core Objectives of NAFIR
Designed under the joint leadership of the National Bank of Ethiopia and the Ministry of Agriculture to structurally transform the agricultural finance ecosystem.
Deepening Financial Inclusion
Deepen financial inclusion in agriculture by improving access to suitable and affordable financial services.
Inputs, Tech & Mechanization
Enhance access to agricultural inputs, technology, mechanization, insurance, and market services.
Risk Mitigation & Resilience
Strengthen agricultural risk mitigation mechanisms and climate resilience.
Productivity & Livelihoods
Improve farmer incomes and livelihoods through increased agricultural productivity and investment.
Food & Nutrition Security
Strengthen food and nutrition security through a more productive and sustainable agricultural sector.
Downstream Agro-Linkages
Cement strong downstream linkages with agro-industries through improved raw material supply and value chain development.
Gender & Inclusive Access
Promote gender equality and inclusive access to agricultural finance.
Export & Youth Employment
Increase export competitiveness, support import substitution, and create employment opportunities, particularly for youth.
Why NAFIR Was Created
Underpinned directly by agriculture across rural communities throughout Ethiopia.
Historical lending directed to agriculture despite supporting the vast majority of the rural workforce.
Trapped below 5% due to institutional silos, liquidity bottlenecks, and manual compliance procedures.
Despite agriculture underpinning the livelihoods of over 80% of Ethiopia’s rural population, generating 34% of GDP, and engaging 64% of the national labor force, the sector has historically received only around 8% of formal bank lending (including CBE fertilizer loan to regions.)
Over the past decades, Ethiopia’s agricultural finance ecosystem has been the beneficiary of substantial, sustained investments from the Government of Ethiopia, international development partners, and the private sector. These collective efforts have built crucial infrastructure, including foundational collateral registries like the National Rural Land Administration Information System (NRLAIS) and the Ethiopian Movable Collateral Registry (EMCR), national identification initiatives through Fayda, digital payment switch expansions via Eth-Switch, and innovative delivery channels like the Agricultural Transformation Institute’s (ATI) clusters and emerging ag-fintech agent networks.
However, simply waiting for these disparate interventions to mature independently will not address Ethiopia’s vast agri-finance gap. Diagnostic assessments reveal that Ethiopia’s agricultural financing shortfall is structural rather than cyclical - a permanent feature of how the rural economy is organized, capitalized, and serviced, rather than a temporary funding deficit that time alone will heal.
Today, formal bank credit directed to primary agriculture remains trapped at below 5%, despite the sector generating 34% of GDP and employing 64% of the labor force. Left on their own, existing systems operate within institutional silos, leaving financial institutions constrained by severe liquidity bottlenecks, high perceived production risks, and manual compliance procedures. Isolated pilots and time-bound donor credit lines have repeatedly proven unable to survive their own funding cycles or unlock the capital scale demanded by the Ten-Year Development Plan.
This structural failure is precisely why the National Agricultural Finance Implementation Roadmap (NAFIR) was developed.
Rather than expecting individual market components to spontaneously align, NAFIR introduces an overarching, permanent national architecture under the joint leadership of the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) and the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA). By systematically bundling catalytic wholesale refinancing and risk-sharing (NAFA), open digital public infrastructure (FAST), and long-term ecosystem capacity building (CoE) into a single institutional framework, NAFIR turns fragmented initiatives into an integrated, self-reinforcing engine.
Meet the NAFIR Team
Dedicated experts driving the National Agricultural Finance Implementation Roadmap under the joint leadership of the National Bank of Ethiopia and the Ministry of Agriculture.
Noah Alemu
Ruth Mulugeta
Netsanet Yirga
Bisrat Mulugeta
Lelisa Mitiku
Habtamu Hailemeskel
Oli Yemane
Our farms
Growing Together, Naturally and Passionately
