IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, parent company of the Ecobank Group and leading pan-African full-service banking group, today announced the launch of a $110 million risk-sharing facility that will increase access to finance for small and medium sized enterprises in fragile and conflict-affected states in West and Central Africa.<\/p>\n
The target countries face extreme and persistent poverty exceeding 50 percent of their populations, coupled with severe socio-economic challenges, such as low employment, lack of infrastructure, and high insecurity that disrupts business activity and impedes access to finance.<\/p>\n
These difficult environments have exacerbated the challenges faced by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which represent the backbone of the participating countries\u2019 economies and provide the bulk of employment.<\/p>\n
The facility is designed to overcome the challenges of lending to these smaller businesses, which have a higher risk profile, in what are some of the world\u2019s poorest countries.<\/p>\n
With IFC and Ecobank sharing risk equally in the $110 million facility, SMEs in Burundi, Chad, C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of Congo, Guinea, Mali and Togo will gain increased access to loans through Ecobank affiliates.<\/p>\n
\u201cIFC places a strategic priority on promoting a sustainable architecture to improve access to finance and spur job creation in fragile- and conflict-affected states,\u201d said Saran Kebet-Koulibaly, IFC Director for West and Central Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur partnership will enable Ecobank to better support small and medium enterprises which face difficulty accessing much-needed credit in these economies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEcobank remains committed to supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, and this facility will go a long way to giving SMEs in fragile states or those emerging from conflict the kind of access to finance that they need,\u201d said Ecobank Group CEO Albert Essien. He added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are pleased to be a founding member of the Global SME Finance Forum and to be able to play a part in the launching of SME Club campaigns in many African countries. This includes participating countries for this project.\u201d<\/p>\n
IFC and Ecobank enjoy a long-standing collaboration dating back to 1993, through which they have delivered innovative and customized initiatives to underserved markets across sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n
Thanks to ETI\u2019s unrivaled reach in SSA, IFC has been able to extend financial access in difficult environments at a scale that few other IFC-partner financial institutions can match.<\/p>\n
Most recently, IFC extended an emergency liquidity facility in response to the Ebola crisis through Ecobank\u2019s affiliates in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the most impacted countries.<\/p>\n
ETI continues to be a key partner of IFC in the markets where it operates.<\/p>\n
–
\nSource: IFC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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