Blending Happiness Hazelnuts and Finance in Bhutan

In 2015, IFC, ADB and GAFSP together invested $12 million in Mountain Hazelnuts, a project to promote hazelnut production by smallholder farmers across Bhutan, the land of Gross National Happiness. This unusual investment in a semi-greenfield company with significant execution risks was IFC’s first ever in the agribusiness sector in Bhutan and was made possible with concessional finance from the Private Sector Window of GAFSP. The project has the potential to improve the lives of 15 percent of Bhutan’s entire population: a mountainous return on a US$6 million GAFSP investment.