By Enyichukwu Enemanna
No fewer than 440,000 opportunities have been created in Nigeria through the intervention of the African Development Bank (AfDB), the regional bank’s President, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina had announced, while adding that women and youths account for 60 percent of beneficiaries.
He said the bank had equally supported more than 20,500 MSMEs, with about eight LOCs targeting SMEs and valued at 1.1 billion dollars in addition to the inauguration of the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA).
“This is a flagship initiative to close the 42 billion dollar access to finance gap for women led and owned SMEs.
“Through AFAWA, the bank will facilitate up to five billion dollars in credit access to women SMEs by 2026.
“This will be achieved by enhancing access to financial services by leveraging our LOCs, trade finance and equity participations.
“This is to ensure that a percentage of these investments are targeting women empowered SMEs.
“To date, more than 800 million dollars in investments has been approved for on-lending to 3,000 women SMEs in 23 African countries, including Nigeria’’ Adesina represented by Mr Lamin Barrow, Director-General of the Nigeria Country Department of AfDB said at the African Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) Immersion Fund Roundtable in Lagos.
With the theme, “Enhancing the Capabilities of MSMES in Africa:The Role of Direct Foreign Investments (DFIs)’’ the roundtable was organised by Access Bank PLC.
Adesina said the initiatives were part of the bank’s effort to support African countries in modernising their business enabling environments for MSMEs to thrive.
According to him, access to finances by MSMEs will be done through equity participation and debt financing for regional development banks and specialised financial institutions.
“In line with the Private Sector Development Strategy (2021-2025) Pillar on Enterprise Development, our lines of credit interventions are increasing.
“They are more targeted to support the development of regional value chains and clusters with strong linkages to MSMEs through off-taker and others to de-risk the eco-system,’’ he said.
Adesina said AfDB’s financial sector development strategy was focused on some pillars.
He said one of the pillars was expanding access to mainly MSMEs operating in the informal sector and fostering development of domestic capital markets and financial institutions.
The AfDB president said, “the bank’s support to enhance the capacity of SMSEs and financial drive inclusion covers thematic areas like access to credit.
“This is provided through an array of instruments, including loans, guarantees and equity participation in Financial Intermediaries (FIs), including banks, SMEs-focused private equity and venture capital funds among others.
“Our Africa SMEs programme will channel 150 million dollars funding to SMEs across Africa to enhance financial inclusion while also addressing barriers to SMEs funding.”
