This is the fifth and final of 5 activities that formed the Private Finance Learning Challenge, hosted by the UN FAO’s Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism team and the Landscape Finance Lab, which ran from Feb-March 2023.

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This session gave participants the chance to quiz a diverse panel of investors including Rebecca Mincy of Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund, Patrick Balifi, at Rainforest Alliance’s Africa Cocoa Fund (ACF) and Sanchayan Chakraborty of Aavishkaar Capital on their investment criteria, strategies and opportunities to engage. 

Speakers

Rebecca Mincy – Investment Director, Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund, Kenya

Rebecca Mincy has ten years’ experience in agriculture, impacting investing and asset management where she has led and made direct investments in the agribusiness sector in East and West Africa. She has developed regional agriculture strategies and has an expanded portfolio that has already reached more than 5.4M smallholder farmers and impacted 27M lives across Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and BA from Stanford University.

Patrick Balifi, Project Manager, Africa Cocoa Fund (ACF) at Rainforest Alliance, Cote d’Ivoire

Formerly at OLAM, Patrick is now part of the Africa Region team at the Africa Cocoa Fund, a $5 million fund to support cocoa farmers and help preserve the local landscapes in West and Central Africa. In his role, Patrick administers the Africa Cocoa Fund covering Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria. He is a Regional Sustainability & Certification expert with 14+ years of experience in project management and evaluation, corporate social responsibility, proven ability in the conduct of sustainability and certification projects.

Sanchayan Chakraborty, Aavishkaar Capital, India

Sanchayan Chakraborty is a Partner at Aavishkaar Capital. He manages Aavishkaar’s South and South-east Asia focused impact fund, and leads Aavishkaar’s climate investment initiatives, including a specific focus on carbon credits and nature-based solutions. Sanchayan has over two decades of experience in investment banking and fund management across Asia and the Middle East. Prior to joining Aavishkaar in 2013, Sanchayan was Managing Director for Leveraged and Acquisition Finance at Standard Chartered Bank (India). He has previously been part of Mergers & Acquisitions, Project Finance and Structured Finance franchises at Bank of America, ING Barings and ING Vysya Bank.