Ecobank earmarks $2.6bn for women, agribusiness lending

Ecobank Group has set a $2.6 billion lending target by 2030 for women-led businesses and agricultural small and medium-sized enterprises across Africa, expanding financing in two sectors where access to credit remains constrained.

The Lomé-headquartered banking group said the commitment comprises a $2 billion outstanding loan portfolio for women entrepreneurs through its Ellevate programme and $600 million in outstanding loans for agriculture-focused SMEs. The targets were announced at the Ecobank@40 Media Conference in Lomé, Togo, as the group concluded its 40th-anniversary programme.

Chief executive Jeremy Awori said the bank intended to use financing for women entrepreneurs and agricultural value chains as part of its next phase of growth across its African network. Ecobank operates in 34 sub-Saharan African countries and serves more than 32 million customers.

Under the expanded Ellevate programme, Ecobank plans to increase its registered base of formal women-led businesses to 400,000 by 2030, from more than 110,000 enterprises it says it has supported so far. Digital onboarding and financial-inclusion initiatives are also intended to open financing pathways for as many as one million female micro-entrepreneurs.

The bank said credit under the programme would include unsecured and partially secured facilities, supported by guarantee arrangements with development finance institutions. Agribusiness, education and healthcare are among the sectors identified for particular attention.

The new target follows a sharp rise in Ecobank’s lending to registered women-led businesses during 2025. Its gender programme report, released in March, said such lending reached $780 million last year, compared with $265 million in 2024, an increase of 194 per cent.

That expansion comes against a persistent financing constraint for women-owned businesses. Ecobank has cited a $42 billion financing gap facing women entrepreneurs across Africa, while development institutions have increasingly used guarantees, concessional finance and risk-sharing structures to encourage commercial banks to extend credit to businesses that may lack conventional collateral.

The African Development Bank said in May that its Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa initiative had partnered with more than 200 financial institutions and channelled more than $3.1 billion to women-led businesses. Ecobank has worked with the initiative on its Ellevate programme, including approaches designed to reduce collateral barriers.

For agriculture, Ecobank’s $600 million target is intended to cover the wider value chain rather than primarily seasonal crop financing. Eligible businesses are expected to include farmers, aggregators, processors, logistics companies, traders and exporters.

The group said its agricultural strategy would prioritise climate-smart farming, digital payments through rural supply chains and structured trade finance. The approach is aimed at improving financing across production, processing and distribution while supporting regional food markets.

Ecobank had already expanded its agricultural financing partnerships this year. In May, it signed a cooperation agreement with AGRA focused on sustainable and climate-resilient agricultural value chains, including blended finance, risk-sharing mechanisms and products for agribusiness SMEs and smallholder farmers. The partnership also targets women- and youth-led agribusinesses.

A separate agreement signed with French development finance institution Proparco in May aims to catalyse as much as €300 million over three years for agricultural production, processing and trade, while also supporting women entrepreneurs through Ellevate in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Kenya.

Ecobank said the two new 2030 lending targets would also draw on its Single Market Trade Hub, a digital marketplace connecting more than 60,000 businesses. The platform is designed to link companies with buyers and suppliers across borders and facilitate payments under the African Continental Free Trade Area.

The programme will also use Ecobank’s pan-African payment infrastructure to support multi-currency transactions for participating businesses. Ecobank has grouped implementation around expanded credit and de-risking, cross-border trade, digitalisation of value chains, and capacity building with environmental, social and governance considerations. The bank said working-capital loans, trade facilities and investment finance would be combined with practical management, leadership and sustainable-agriculture training, reflecting an effort to pair access to capital with stronger business capabilities and regional market access.