Collaborative for Frontier Finance (CFF) was established October 2018. CFF works with 80+ stakeholders including fund managers, funders, and field builders to accelerate financing solutions for small and growing businesses (SGBs) in frontier and emerging markets.

CFF focuses on SGBs as they create approximately 80% of employment opportunities in frontier and emerging markets, in turn it is an essential part of every economy, and it has major social and environmental impact. The main aim of the CFF is to provide financing solutions to bridge the US$940b financing gap in appropriate capital needed to grow by SGBs.

CFF believes that increasing the appropriate capital for SGBs will result in a direct contribution to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals include:

• Job creation – Create new, quality, and long-term jobs that increase incomes.
• Goods and Services – Provide access to essential goods and services like health, education, transportation, and more.
• Value Chain – Provide access to essential goods and services like health, education, transportation, and more.
• Innovation – Catalyse new approaches to serve customers in frontier markets in business model, strategy, and distribution.

CFF mobilises additional capital for SGBs in three ways:

• Networks – By connecting stakeholders facing similar pain-points to a peer network of actors operating with shared principles, values, and ambitions to learn and support from one another.
• Actionable research – Facilitating research to improve transparency within the SGB sector, and to provide a practical guide for those less familiar with the sector and dispel common misconceptions.
• Initiative – Identifying concrete initiatives which CFF can take ownership of to provide tangible support to the broader early-stage investing sector. Through the resources of the CFF network, they’re working to amplify the voices of local capital providers.

Our Vision:

CFF works with diverse stakeholders – including local capital providers, institutional investors, development agencies, philanthropic funders, and field builder organisations – to accelerate financing solutions that target SGBs. With a bias to action, CFF works in three ways: by building and empowering networks of these stakeholders, capacity building and undertaking market-based initiatives to address systemic barriers, with a view to fostering a peer-to-peer learning environment and providing a platform for collective action.

The Collaborative for Frontier Finance is funded by a growing community of stakeholders interested in finance for small and growing businesses in emerging and frontier markets.

Partners of this organisation include:

• Argidius
• Australian Government- Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
• MacArthur Foundation
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands
• Omidyar Network
• Small Foundation
• World Bank Group

Find out more here.