UN Agency ITC Partners Access Bank To Support Women And Youth Businesses In 14 African Nations

The International Trade Centre, ITC, and the Access Africa Office, which coordinates the African subsidiaries of Access Bank Plc, have formed a strategic partnership to support small business growth across 14 African countries.

The partnership was formalized with the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 21, 2026.

Under the agreement, both organisations will work together to boost access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, and improve access to markets and skills training. The programme will begin with a pilot in Ghana.

The 14 countries included in the programme are Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.

According to the joint statement, African small businesses generate most jobs on the continent but struggle to secure financing and market access for growth. The partnership combines ITC’s expertise as a joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations with Access Bank’s extensive branch network.

The three-year collaboration will focus on five key areas including job creation through SMEs, access to finance especially for women and youth-owned businesses, SME business sustainability, capacity building including digital trade skills, and market access including support for intra-African trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA.

The pilot phase will run from September 2026 to June 2027 and will target small businesses in Ghana, with priority given to women-led enterprises. It will draw on ITC’s digital learning tools and training-of-trainers programmes in coordination with Access Africa Office staff.

From 2027, the partners plan to scale up to additional countries with advanced training on sustainability standards and digital marketplace tools.

Access Bank operates more than 700 branches across 25 countries on three continents and serves over 63 million customers.

Commenting on the deal, Executive Director of ITC, Pamela Coke-Hamilton, said access to finance remains the biggest barrier to trade for small businesses in Africa and the partnership will address that challenge.

Executive Director, African Subsidiaries at Access Bank, Seyi Kumapayi, said finance alone cannot help small businesses scale, noting that capital must be combined with market access and trade-ready skills.

We see every day that finance alone does not get a small business to scale. It is the combination of capital, market access and trade-ready skills that makes the difference, Kumapayi said.