AfDB wants lending to MSMEs in Africa increased to $135bn

Th e African Development Bank (AfDB) has called on fi nancial credit providers to increase lending to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Africa to 135 billion U.S. dollars. Akinwunmi Adesina, President, AfDB. Adesina solicited a holistic policy approach to strengthen entrepreneurship to facilitate Africa’s industrialisation and tackle the myriad fi nancial constraints facing small-scale businesses. “Th e entrepreneurial culture is vibrant, with about 80 percent of Africans viewing entrepreneurship as a good career opportunity. “New industrialisation strategies should focus on leveraging this dynamism and targeting the continent’s fastgrowing private enterprises which have potential to create quality jobs. “Given Africa’s potential for increased involvement in this sector, AfDB is also increasing its eff orts to promote access to fi nance for entrepreneurs to create start-ups and expand existing businesses,” he said. Adesina said that the bank in 2016 provided fi nancial services to 156,000 owners and operators of MSMEs via fi nancial intermediaries to address a key challenge facing eff orts to start and grow businesses. He said that AfDB had collaborated with USAID, the Fund for Africa Private Sector Assistance and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to build the capacity of SMEs in Zambia. He said that the partnership was to enable the nation’s fi nancial institutions to become effi cient in lending to smaller businesses.