The Nairobi-based Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the MasterCard Foundation have announced a new US$15.5 million programme designed to improve the productivity and incomes of almost 730,000 smallholder farmers in Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania. According to Dr. Agnes Kalibata, President of AGRA, the project will promote access to financial services for smallholders through financial institutions and agriculture value chain actors, especially agro-dealers, aggregators, warehouse operators and farmer based organizations. The project will also target other parts of the value chain, agribusinesses (especially small and medium enterprises), which also struggle to obtain sufficient working and investment capital, and are critical to strengthening and developing food value chains.