Small and medium enterprises comprise the majority of Africa’s private businesses, and supporting them is crucial to development. But entrepreneurs in the region often face crucial capacity constraints to growing their businesses, while limitations in the sales, product development, and risk management expertise at many banks prevent them from working effectively with smaller businesses.
The Africa Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Finance Program is designed to provide support to financial institutions to rapidly and profitably develop their banking services to smaller enterprises while maintaining good asset quality. The program combines advisory services and financial products to participating banks.
The IFC SME Solutions Centers are another key component of IFC’s support for small and medium sized enterprises in Africa. The centers promote access to finance for businesses in the region, complemented by specific capacity building services. Pilot initiatives are active in Kenya and Madagascar.
The SME Solutions Centers deliver an integrated package of small business-focused services under one roof. They support small and medium sized enterprises at different stages of business development to enable them to improve their business processes, human resources, structures, and products and services. As part of this process, participating enterprises graduate to a point where they are able to access finance through the SME Solutions Centers and, ultimately, from existing traditional financial institutions.
For more information contact:
Houtan Bassiri
Communications Officer
Johannesburg, South Africa
Tel: +27-11-731-3179
Email: hbassiri@ifc.org
