The Kenya Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) has won a prestigious global award for its sustainability efforts, underscoring its growing role in financing a climate-resilient and environmentally sustainable agricultural sector.
The Corporation was feted for driving climate-smart lending, planting 1.49 million trees and expanding finance to underserved farmers and businesses.
The ‘Outstanding Business Sustainability Achievement’ was awarded at the 2026 Global Sustainable Finance Conference in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The Award comes as AFC steps-up efforts to make climate resilience a central component of agricultural financing, with the corporation currently supporting 213,740 active borrowers through an agricultural financing portfolio of about Sh13 billion.
In a press statement, today, AFC Managing Director, George Kubai, who received the Award on behalf of the Corporation, said the recognition affirmed its commitment to transforming Kenya’s agricultural sector through sustainable financing.
“This recognition underscores AFC’s growing role in steering Kenya’s agricultural sector toward climate resilience and sustainability,” Kubai said.
He added that the Corporation will continue expanding its sustainable finance portfolio, empowering farmers, strengthening agricultural value chains and helping communities withstand the effects of climate change in line with the Government’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA).
AFC’s sustainability drive has also extended to environmental conservation, with borrowers required to plant one tree for every Sh10,000 advanced.
The initiative has contributed to the planting of more than 1.49 million trees by AFC, its clients and local communities across all its 47 branches during the 2024/25 and 2025/26 Financial Years.
The Corporation has also made Environmental and Social Management System screening mandatory for 100 per cent of its loan applications, ensuring environmental and social considerations are incorporated into lending decisions.
AFC’s green financing initiatives include the DRIVE Programme, which supports climate-smart financing in pastoral economies in arid and semi-arid areas, and the SAFER Programme, which provides affordable financing to MSMEs, with priority given to women- and youth-owned enterprises.
Through the RK-FINFA programme, AFC is also channeling green finance through SACCOs to underserved rural communities, with 5,870 beneficiaries, 65 per cent of them women.
Kubai said that the Corporation has further mobilized Sh161.8 million for climate-resilient irrigation through a USD77,370 credit guarantee facility, achieving a leverage ratio of more than 16:1.
AFC was the first institution in Kenya to achieve Sustainability Standards and Certification Initiative (SSCI) certification, a milestone that has since been followed by the integration of climate risk management into its operations and financing decisions.
Arshad Rab, Chairman of the International Council of Sustainability Standards for Value-Driven Financial Institutions and CEO of the European Organization for Sustainable Development, said the Award reflected AFC’s ability to turn sustainability commitments into practical action.
Rab noted that agriculture remains critical to food security, employment, enterprise development and economic resilience, making sustainable agricultural finance essential to Kenya’s development.
By Wangari Ndirangu
