The International Trade Centre (ITC) and Access Bank have entered into a three-year partnership aimed at expanding access to finance, markets and skills for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across 14 African countries.
The partnership, formalised through a memorandum of understanding on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, will initially be piloted in Ghana before being expanded to other African markets.
The 14 countries targeted under the programme are Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.
The initiative seeks to address some of the major challenges facing African small businesses, particularly limited access to affordable financing, markets and business skills.
Under the agreement, ITC and Access Bank will focus on five priority areas: job creation through SMEs, access to finance, business sustainability, capacity building and access to markets.
Special attention will be given to women- and youth-owned enterprises, while the programme will also support intra-African trade through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The pilot phase will run from September 2026 to June 2027 and will target a selected group of small businesses in Ghana, with women-led enterprises given priority.
The programme will draw on ITC’s digital learning tools and training-of-trainers programmes, which will be implemented in collaboration with staff from Access Africa Office.
From 2027, the partners intend to scale the programme to additional countries and introduce more advanced training in areas such as sustainability standards and digital marketplace tools.
ITC Executive Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton said limited access to finance remains one of the biggest obstacles preventing small businesses from participating in trade and expanding their operations.
“Access to finance is the biggest barrier to trade faced by small businesses across Africa. We’re working with Access Bank to tackle this challenge and accompany the enterprises as we equip them with the knowledge, networks and market connections they need to grow,” Coke-Hamilton said.
Seyi Kumapayi, Executive Director of African Subsidiaries at Access Bank, said financing alone was not sufficient to enable small businesses to grow.
“We see every day that finance alone does not get a small business to scale. It is the combination of capital, market access and trade-ready skills that makes the difference,” Kumapayi said.
He said the partnership would combine Access Bank’s presence across African markets with ITC’s expertise in business knowledge, networks and market connections.
The programme is also expected to contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals on gender equality, decent work and economic growth, and industry, innovation and infrastructure.
Access Bank currently operates across Africa through a network of more than 700 branches in 25 countries across three continents and serves more than 63 million customers.
