About the Campaign
As the world marks MSME Day on 27 June, it is worth recognising the critical role that micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) play in shaping food systems and nutrition outcomes. Across Asia and Africa, MSMEs are responsible for much of the food that is produced, processed, transported, and sold, while also creating jobs, supporting livelihoods, and driving local economic growth.
Yet despite producing enough food globally, hunger and malnutrition persist. According to the FAO's State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025 report, an estimated 673 million people—or 8.2% of the global population—faced hunger in 2024, while 2.6 billion people could not afford a healthy diet. These challenges are often framed as issues of food production or access. However, there is growing recognition that how food systems are financed plays a defining role in what food is produced, distributed, marketed, and ultimately consumed.
Why This Matters
The scale of this challenge is considerable. According to the Asian Development Bank, developing Asia faces an estimated US$2.5 trillion financing gap for MSMEs, including businesses operating across food and agriculture value chains. In many Sub-Saharan African countries, agriculture receives less than 10% of total commercial bank credit, despite the sector's central role in livelihoods, food production, and nutrition. This "missing middle" in financing limits the ability of food-focused MSMEs to invest in productivity, innovation, resilience, and market expansion (Source : ADB)
2025 and onwards has served as a stark reminder that the development financing landscape is changing rapidly. While the decline in traditional aid flows has been challenging, it has also accelerated efforts to rethink how development is financed. From stronger donor coordination and UN reforms to increased engagement from international and development finance institutions, there are encouraging signs that the sector is adapting. The focus is increasingly shifting from simply mobilising more resources to using available resources more strategically, collaboratively, and effectively.
GAIN and partners see access to finance as not only a business issue, but also a nutrition issue. Through our work supporting nutritious food enterprises, innovative financing mechanisms, and food systems transformation, we recognise that the businesses shaping local food environments are critical to improving diets and nutrition outcomes.
This campaign also aligns with GAIN's World MSME Day 2026 theme, Innovation: The Future of Nutrition Businesses, recognising that nutrition-focused MSMEs require not only innovation and entrepreneurship, but also access to appropriate financing to scale their impact.
The challenge is not only that too little investment reaches food systems, but that investments are often directed to the wrong places or deployed at too small a scale to drive meaningful change. In an era of constrained development assistance, the question is no longer simply how to do more with less, but how to do better with less, by leveraging larger resource flows, catalysing private investment, and directing finance towards the enterprises that can improve both livelihoods and nutrition outcomes.(Source : The fight has begun)
Pathway to Impact
This campaign endeavours to showcase how financing actors and innovative funding models are driving food systems transformation, also strengthening food-focused MSMEs, and aligning investment with healthier diets, nutrition outcomes, and sustainability goals.
Outcomes
- Increased awareness of how financing decisions influence food systems, enterprise growth, food access, and nutrition outcomes across Asia and Africa.
- Improved understanding of financing models that support food system transformation, including greater access to capital for nutrition-focused MSMEs.
- Greater visibility for innovative enterprises, financing initiatives, and stakeholders advancing healthier and more sustainable food systems.
- Strengthened cross-sector dialogue facilitated by Nutrition Connect at GAIN as a knowledge platform on food systems financing, nutrition, and enterprise development.
Outputs
- A series of interview-based articles and blogs featuring investors, financial institutions, MSMEs and ecosystem actors.
- Multi-format digital and social media content
- Stakeholder perspectives and case studies showcasing innovative financing and enterprise support models
Contact
Debjani Samantaray
Global Manager – Knowledge Management, GAIN
dsamantaray@gainhealth.org
Abhishri Agarwal
Global Consultant, GAIN
abhishriagarwal0@gmail.com