Ecobank expands financing for women entrepreneurs
DAR ES SALAAM: TO bridge the gender financing gap for Africa’s women entrepreneurs, Ecobank, the leading pan African financial services group, announces significant enhancements to its multi-award-winning gender-financing solution- ‘Ellevate by Ecobank’.
These improvements strengthen Ecobank’s commitment to women-owned, women-led, and women focused businesses, while reinforcing its market competitiveness.
Ecobank Group Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Awori said yesterday through a statement that they recognise and applaud the role that women entrepreneurs play in driving socio-economic impact across Africa and are committed to supporting them at every stage of their entrepreneurial journey.
“Since the launch of the Ellevate programme we have made significant progress, disbursing over 200 million US dollars in loans, providing business networking opportunities, and offering leadership and capacity-building training for businesswomen.”
Today, the Group CEO said, Ellevate 2.0 heralds in a new era for gender financing. It is bigger, better and more inclusive, delivering exceptional value to female entrepreneurs and women business leaders.
“It also supports our Group-wide objective of promoting gender equality and contributing to sustainable development,” Mr Awori said.
The World Bank estimates that closing the gender gap in Africa could add 2.5 trillion US dollars to the continent’s GDP by 2025, underscoring the urgency of investing in women – not just for social justice, but for a more prosperous and equitable future for all Africans.
The enhanced Ellevate’s value propositions now include increasing access to finance with unsecured loans of up to 50,000 US dollars, competitive interest rates and favourable collateral requirements, helping them to find new customers and access new markets across Africa through MyTradeHub platform and training, knowledge sharing webinars, support and other initiatives to enhance customers’ business and leadership skills.
To coincide with the celebrations of the International Women’s Day, Ecobank enhanced Ellevate programme will be launched by nine of the lender’s affiliates in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Senegal, Togo and Zimbabwe) by the end of March 2025. It will then be rolled-out in phases across all other sub-Saharan African affiliates throughout the year.
