The objective of this conference was to capture the lessons and best practices – the successes and failures – in agricultural finance, financial liberalization, risk management and microfinance—to pave the way forward for smart, sustainable financial market services tailored for the specific challenges of rural economies. Examination of current institutions, programs and ways to improve rural finance policies produced policy and programming recommendations for donors and practitioners involved in rural finance development. This site contains the lists of participants, the conference synthesis paper, the key literature and the conference evaluation report. The key literature section is particularly useful for AgRisk in that it provides a literature review, case studies, theme papers, contributed papers, and donor program reviews on the subjects of risk management and rural finance, among others.