Ecobank Group has reported a sharp rise in financing to women entrepreneurs across Africa, with lending to registered women-led businesses increasing by 194 percent to US$780 million in 2025, up from US$265 million in 2024.
The figures were revealed during the launch of the Ecobank Gender Programme Report, released to mark International Women’s Day 2026, highlighting the bank’s expanding efforts to support women entrepreneurs and close Africa’s gender financing gap.
Women entrepreneurs remain a crucial pillar of Africa’s economies, generating employment, supporting families, and strengthening local value chains. However, despite high levels of entrepreneurial activity, women-led businesses across the continent continue to face a US$42 billion financing gap, limiting their ability to expand and compete.
Ecobank says its gender-focused initiatives are helping address this challenge by combining access to finance with training, mentoring, and cross-border market opportunities, enabling women entrepreneurs to build sustainable and scalable businesses.
One of the bank’s flagship initiatives, the Ellevate programme, has grown significantly since its launch in November 2020 to support women-led businesses affected by the COVID-19 crisis.
The programme now operates in 26 African countries, spanning West, Central, East and Southern Africa, and has become one of the continent’s most geographically extensive women-focused banking initiatives.
More than 103,000 registered women entrepreneurs are currently supported under the programme. In 2025 alone, an additional 21,000 women entrepreneurs joined the ecosystem, while over 24,000 women received training, mentoring, or other non-financial support.
Through the bank’s Ecobank Single Market Trade Hub, women-led businesses are also connected to continental trade opportunities, allowing entrepreneurs to reach new customers and partners across African markets and expand beyond their domestic borders.
Ecobank has also extended its support to women operating within Africa’s vast informal economy through its MAMA programme, first launched in Ghana in 2024.
The initiative provides subsidised credit facilities, customised savings solutions, and practical business advisory support for women running small and informal enterprises.
Many of these entrepreneurs generate strong daily cash flows but remain excluded from traditional banking services due to limited documentation or collateral requirements.
In its second year of operation, the programme has already enrolled more than 10,000 women entrepreneurs in the informal sector, while over 2,000 women have received subsidised credit facilities totalling more than US$1.8 million.
The bank has also begun mobilising additional funding sources to scale financing for women entrepreneurs.
In March 2025, Ecobank Côte d’Ivoire launched the first Gender Bond in the WAEMU region and only the second such bond in Africa. The issuance raised over XOF 11 billion (about US$18.2 million) within 48 hours, exceeding its initial target.
Funds from the bond are expected to finance nearly 1,200 additional loans for women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across West Africa.
Jeremy Awori, Group Chief Executive Officer of Ecobank, said women entrepreneurs remain among the most powerful drivers of economic growth across Africa but continue to face structural barriers to finance.
“Women entrepreneurs are among the most powerful drivers of local economic growth across Africa, yet many still face barriers to finance that limit their ability to scale,” Awori said.
“At Ecobank, we are working to close this gap by combining capital, capability building and market access through our pan-African platform. The strong growth in lending to women-led businesses reflects both the demand from entrepreneurs and the impact of initiatives such as Ellevate and our Gender Bond.”
Looking ahead, Ecobank plans to expand the enhanced Ellevate programme across all its markets, deepen non-financial support including digital tools and business formalisation pathways, strengthen partnerships with development finance institutions and impact investors, and introduce new financial products specifically tailored for women entrepreneurs across Africa.
