In addition to supporting farmer organizations in developing and fundraising for concrete projects, NOW Partners Foundation and Global Academy also collaborate with governments and financial institutions to develop and manage two types of Financial Guarantee Facilities.

One provides guarantees covering risks such as for exchange rate fluctuations that may keep them from providing much needed private and public investment funding. The other provides guarantees for farmers in cooperatives to access public farmer funding programs, such as Brasil’s Pronaf, that theoretically is available but practically is very hard to access without such guarantees. Such guarantee facilities are part of the enabling environment that needs to be strengthened if we want Agroecology and Agroforestry to scale.