ITCentre, Access Bank partner to boost SMEs growth across 14 African countries

The International Trade Centre (ITC) and The Access Africa Office, the coordinating office for the African subsidiaries of Access Bank Plc, one of Africa’s leading pan-African financial institutions, establish a new partnership to boost access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises, and increase access to markets and skills training, in 14 African countries.

The programme will start with a pilot in Ghana while the 14 countries include Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia.

African small businesses generate most of the continent’s jobs but regularly struggle to get the financing and market access they need to grow. This partnership brings together the strength of the UN small business agency and its technical expertise with a pan-African bank’s on-the-ground reach to close that gap. This reflects Access Bank’s long-standing commitment to closing Africa’s SME finance gap through inclusive, sustainable ecosystem banking.

The partnership – marked by the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York – will focus on five priority areas, over three years: job creation through small and medium enterprises (SMEs); access to finance, with particular attention to women- and youth-owned businesses; SME business sustainability; capacity building, including digital trade skills; and access to markets, including support for intra-African trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). This work directly advances the UN Sustainable Development Goals 5 (Gender Equality), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure).

The implementation begins with a pilot phase from September 2026 to June 2027, focused on a cohort of small businesses in Ghana, with women-led enterprises prioritized.

The pilot draws on ITC’s existing digital learning tools and training-of-trainers programmes, delivered in coordination with Access Africa Office staff. The partnership aims to scale up from 2027 onwards to cover additional countries and programmes, including advanced training on sustainability standards and digital marketplace tools.

Access Bank operates across Africa, with a network of more than 700 branches across 25 countries on three continents and over 63 million customers.

Executive Director of the International Trade Centre,Pamela Coke-Hamilton, said: ‘Access to finance is the biggest barrier to trade faced 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.’