ITC and Access Bank Launch SME Partnership Across 14 African Countries, Starting in Ghana

The International Trade Centre (ITC) and Access Bank have signed a memorandum of understanding to improve access to finance, markets and skills training for small and medium-sized enterprises across 14 African countries, according to Nairametrics. The agreement, signed on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, launches a three-year programme that will begin with a pilot in Ghana running from September 2026 to June 2027, before scaling across the wider region.

Women-Led Businesses a Priority

The Ghana pilot will prioritise women-led enterprises, using ITC’s digital learning tools and training-of-trainers programmes delivered alongside Access Bank’s Access Africa office staff, according to MyJoyOnline. The wider partnership covers Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.

Five Priority Areas

Over its three-year span, the programme will focus on five areas: job creation through 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, according to Nairametrics. ITC has said the Ghana pilot will work with a defined cohort of small businesses before the model is adapted and rolled out to the other thirteen countries from 2027 onwards, with lessons from the pilot expected to shape how the training and financing components are sequenced elsewhere.

Why It Matters

Small and medium-sized enterprises are widely regarded as the backbone of job creation across Africa, but many struggle to access affordable finance or reach markets beyond their home country, particularly when they are led by women or young entrepreneurs with limited collateral or credit history. A structured, multi-year partnership between a trade-focused UN agency and a pan-African commercial bank gives SMEs in participating countries a more coordinated route to both capital and practical trade skills, potentially offering a template other regional banks and development agencies could replicate as they look for ways to translate continental trade agreements like AfCFTA into tangible benefits for smaller firms.