ITC-Access Bank Partnership Targets SMEs Job Creation Across Africa

A new partnership between the International Trade Centre (ITC) and Access Bank's Access Africa Office aims to unlock finance, skills, and market access for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in 14 African countries, with the goal of supporting millions of jobs on the continent. The three-year programme, launched through a memorandum of understanding signed on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, will begin with a pilot in Ghana from September 2026 to June 2027, prioritising women-led enterprises before scaling across the region from 2027. The ITC-Access Bank deal seeks to address constraints faced by African small businesses, including limited access to credit, weak market linkages, and insufficient trade-ready skills, by combining the UN small-business agency's technical expertise with Access Bank's pan-African branch network and customer base.

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