AfDB,EBID sign loan agreement for $50 million and €50 million to strengthen regional food security

By Onome Amuge.

The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) and the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) have signed an agreement for a dual currency line of credit comprising $50 million and €50 million to support local agricultural businesses in West Africa.

George Agyekum Donkor, president and chairman of the board of directors of EBID, and Solomon Quaynor, AfDB vice president for private sector, infrastructure, and industrialisation, formalised the agreement during a signing ceremony at the African Development Bank’s headquarters in Abidjan, Coted’voire.

Prior to the recent development, The African Development Bank’s board of directors had approved the dual currency line of credit for EBID early in 2023. The Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF), sponsored by the People’s Bank of China and managed by the AfDB, will provide an additional $30 million in co-financing.

The three-and-a-half-year facility will enable EBID to offer direct financing to commercial banks and local businesses operating in the agriculture and soft commodity sector within its member states.

This aligns with EBID’s strategic aim to  support local businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), local business cooperatives, and farmers in West Africa. The credit lines are expected to strengthen food security, economic growth, and employment generation.

The partnership between EBID and the African Development Bank also demonstrates the increasing cooperation among African development finance institutions to bridge trade finance gaps and direct much-needed funds to economically challenged countries and sectors.

Donkor said the credit facility illustrates EBID’s continued efforts to mobilise adequate resources to honour its commitment to the region’s transformation agenda through supporting and investing in key sectors, in this case, the agribusiness industry.”

AfDB’s Quaynor said the agreement underscores the multilateral financial institution’s strong commitment to harness the continent’s limited resources to deliver, with speed and at scale, quality investments to help address the ever increasing trade finance gap in Africa while working with strategic regional partners like EBID and local commercial banks.