The International Trade Centre (ITC) and Access Africa Office, the coordinating office for the African subsidiaries of Access Bank Plc, 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 signed on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, will initially launch with a pilot programme in Ghana before expanding to other African markets from 2027.
The 14 countries covered by the initiative are Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.
The programme is designed to address some of the major challenges confronting African small businesses, particularly limited access to finance, inadequate market opportunities and gaps in business and digital skills.
Under the three-year initiative, ITC and Access Bank will focus on five priority areas: job creation through SMEs; access to finance, particularly for women- and youth-owned businesses; business sustainability; capacity building, including digital trade skills; and access to markets, with emphasis on strengthening intra-African trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The initiative is also expected to contribute to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 5 on Gender Equality, SDG 8 on Decent Work and Economic Growth, and SDG 9 on Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure.
The pilot phase, scheduled to run from September 2026 to June 2027, will target a cohort of small businesses in Ghana, with priority given to women-led enterprises.
The programme will leverage ITC’s existing digital learning platforms and training-of-trainers programmes, implemented in collaboration with Access Africa Office staff. From 2027, the partners plan to expand the initiative to additional countries and introduce programmes covering sustainability standards and digital marketplace tools.
Executive Director of the International Trade Centre, Pamela Coke-Hamilton, said access to finance remains one of the biggest barriers limiting African small businesses from participating effectively in trade.
She said the partnership with Access Bank would go beyond financing by providing SMEs with the knowledge, networks and market connections required to build sustainable businesses and expand their reach.
Executive Director, African Subsidiaries at Access Bank, Seyi Kumapayi, said finance alone was not sufficient to enable small businesses to scale.
According to him, combining capital with market access and trade-ready skills would give African SMEs a stronger foundation for sustainable growth.
He said the partnership would initially support women-led enterprises and small businesses in Ghana, with the long-term ambition of expanding intra-African trade and deepening financial inclusion across the continent.
Access Bank currently operates through a network of more than 700 branches and service outlets across 25 countries on three continents, serving more than 60 million customers.
The International Trade Centre is a joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in developing and transition economies to become more competitive in international markets.
Access Africa Office serves as the coordinating office for the African subsidiaries of Access Bank Plc, a wholly owned subsidiary of Access Holdings Plc.