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Cascador and Sterling Bank Announce $200 Million SME Credit Backstop Fund
Sterling Bank is an innovation-led financial institution guided by a belief in impact capitalism, deploying capital to deliver commercial returns while improving lives and expanding opportunity.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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South Africa Allocates Additional $9 Million to MyMzansi Digital Government Platform
New funding supports DPI development as national digital ID plans advance and central bank explores separate payments credential.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Harder Choices Ahead: What the Financial Inclusion Compass 2026 Tells us About the Sector’s Shifting Challenges
What is the biggest story in financial inclusion in 2026? Sam Mendelson at European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP) shares insights from e-MFP's “Financial Inclusion Compass 2026,” a survey of sector trends, risks and priorities that's been published since 2018. As he explains, the survey responses show a sector that is raising its ambitions for what financial inclusion has to achieve, at the same time as the environment in which it operates is becoming more difficult. He explores some key findings, as financial inclusion moves away from an era characterized by access, growth and donor-supported expansion, and towards one increasingly shaped by resilience, adaptation, commercial pressure, and harder choices about who gets served, how and at what cost.
- Categories
- Finance
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Analysis: Beyond Capital: What It Will Take to Unlock Investment in Africa’s Social Enterprises
Isaac Aggrey of the African Social Entrepreneurs Network explores what it takes to unlock investment for Africa’s social enterprises and SMEs. Beyond capital, he highlights investment readiness, appropriate finance, risk-sharing, market access and impact measurement as critical to helping viable enterprises grow, create jobs, empower women and strengthen inclusive, resilient economies across Africa.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Nigeria: African Development Bank Group Commits $750,000 to Boost Women-Led Enterprises Through Lagos State Government and National Partners
Through its Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative, the Bank is providing $750,000 in grant support to strengthen women-led enterprises across Nigeria.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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BII and Swedfund Report Reveals over $200 Billion Funding Gap for Black-Owned and -Led Businesses Across Five African Markets
The report, Understanding the investment gaps in Black-owned and -led businesses in sub-Saharan Africa, combines quantitative market analysis with stakeholder consultations to examine where these businesses are represented, the scale of their funding gaps and the factors shaping access to capital.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Is the World Bank to Blame for the Cambodian Microfinance Crisis?
For the past five years, Cambodia’s microfinance sector has been experiencing a major over-indebtedness crisis. And as inclusive finance consultant Daniel Rozas explains, despite multiple warnings that the sector was overheating, IFC, the World Bank’s private investment arm, poured fuel on the flames by investing in the largest and fastest-growing of the country's leading microfinance institutions. Making matters worse, after an investigation by IFC’s own ombudsman concluded that clients had been harmed due to its failure to monitor the social risks created by its investments, its board dismissed those findings. He explores how the industry went off the rails in Cambodia, and argues that IFC not only worsened the crisis, it helped undermine the sector’s own efforts to avert it.
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NADF, German Firm Partner on Climate-Resilient Agricultural Finance
"The partnership is also expected to support the development of new or improved financial products for smallholder farmers, particularly those designed around the growing risks posed by climate change to agricultural production."
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment, Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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