This note provides guidance togovernments on how to screen and select prospectiveinvestment projects to ensure they maximize the social,economic, and environmental benefits while minimizing therisks. It provides investors information on what can beexpected in cases of good screening practice. The acceptanceof investors that later fail financially or have poor socialand environmental outcomes has had damaging impacts on manycountries as well as communities. Screening investors is acritical component of a country’s policy framework tomitigate those risks and to improve the likelihood thatinvestments will have a positive effect on sustainabledevelopment priorities. This note summarizes availableresources on how to screen agricultural investments andcalls on donors, international organizations, and civilsociety to develop more. It is complemented by note 7: toolsfor screening investors, which provides a detailed toolkitthat can be adapted to host countries’ individual circumstances.