Sommalife Limited (DFC-2024-SOMMALIFELIMIT)

Countries
  • Ghana
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Specific Location
Northern Ghana
Whenever identified, the area within countries where the impacts of the investment may be experienced. Exact locations of projects may not be identified fully or at all in project documents. Please review updated project documents and community-led assessments.
Financial Institutions
  • US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Active
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
B
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Borrower
Sommalife Limited
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Agriculture and Forestry
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Loan
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
$ 1.00 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Project Cost (USD)
$ 1.00 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Bank Documents
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ DFC website

Updated in EWS Jun 1, 2025

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Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

According to the Bank’s website, the DFC loan will enable Sommalife to expand its operations and increase shea purchases from women smallholder farmers, and eventually expand into additional commodity value chains. Sommalife works directly with smallholder farmers to promote sustainable farming techniques and ensure the long-term preservation of shea parklands. The Project is expected to purchase commodities from 100,000 smallholder farmer suppliers, and provide financial literacy and sustainable agricultural practices training to 120,000 smallholder farmers through a trainer-of-trainers approach. Sustainable agricultural practices to be disseminated include: agroforestry, post-harvest best practices, water management, and preventing deforestation. Sommalife developed farmer training modules in collaboration with researchers from local universities and technical assistance providers, and the company recruited a value chain and community development specialist to lead onboarding and coaching of lead trainers. Sommalife plans to partner with Advans Ghana, a leading microfinance institution in Ghana, to develop and deliver financial literacy training.

Early Warning System Project Analysis
For a project with severe or irreversible impacts to local community and natural resources, the Early Warning System Team may conduct a thorough analysis regarding its potential impacts to human and environmental rights.

The Project has been screened as Category B because impacts are site-specific and readily mitigated. Operational activities include buying/selling shea nut, providing training to farmers, operating and facilitating seedling nurseries and facilitating loans to a limited number of smallholder farmers.

Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.

$1,000,000 DFC USD-equivalent Principal & Interest Synthetic Local Currency Loan (SLCL) in GHS, senior/unsecured

Private Actors Description
A Private Actor is a non-governmental body or entity that is the borrower or client of a development project, which can include corporations, private equity and banks. This describes the private actors and their roles in relation to the project, when private actor information is disclosed or has been further researched.

Sommalife is a shea-nut processing/distribution company that works primarily with rural women groups in in northern Ghana.

Private Actor 1 Private Actor 1 Role Private Actor 1 Sector Relation Private Actor 2 Private Actor 2 Role Private Actor 2 Sector
- - - - Sommalife Limited Client -

Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

No contacts available at the time of disclosure.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

Unlike many other development finance institutions, DFC does not currently have an access to information policy.

Under the United States Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), DFC is obliged to respond to reasonably formulated requests for Agency records. However, DFC may apply exemptions from release to certain types of information and may charge fees in responding to requests. DFC has a designated FOIA officer who is trained in how to respond to requests and implement the law. You can learn more about filing a FOIA request at: https://www.dfc.gov/foia

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF THE UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT FINANCE CORPORATION (DFC)

The Office of Accountability is an independent office that addresses complaints about environmental or social issues related to DFC-supported projects. The office provides communities an opportunity to have concerns independently reviewed and addressed. If you submit a complaint to the Office of Accountability, it may assist you by either seeking to address your problems by facilitating a problem solving dialogue between you and those implementing the project and/or investigating whether the DFC complied with its policies to prevent environmental, social, human rights, and labor harms.

You can find more information about the Office of Accountability at: https://www.dfc.gov/who-we-are/office-accountability

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How it works