A recent regional survey has revealed that one in four food traders cites financial constraints as the most significant barrier to growth, stalling the region’s economic progress and contribution to global food supply chains.

To tackle this challenge head-on, the ECOWAS Agricultural Trade (EAT) Programme, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), has partnered with the ECOWAS Commission and Nigeria’s Wema Bank Plc to develop a new financing solution tailored to the needs of agri-trade small and medium enterprises (SMEs). 

Known as the Agribusiness and Cross-border Trade (ACT) Financing Product, this initiative is currently under review by Wema Bank’s Executive Management.

Furthermore, a recent workshop convened 35 agri-trade SMEs, representing diverse cooperative societies, to enhance their comprehension of financing product development and validate a regional needs assessment concerning SME agri-finance.

This initiative can serve as a lighthouse project, encouraging greater participation from financial institutions in empowering agri-traders and realising the complete potential of regional trade for both food security and economic development.

The EAT Programme, implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, sees the ACT product as a potential lighthouse project, one that could inspire other financial institutions across the region to rethink how they support agricultural trade.

Source:  GIZ 

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