DBN, AfDB sign $61m credit deal for women businesses – Daily Trust

The Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) have signed a $61 million gender-focused credit line to increase financing for women-owned businesses, as a part of efforts to enhance entry to funds and assist extra feminine entrepreneurs develop their enterprises.

The settlement was signed on the sidelines of DBN’s seventh Annual Lecture in Abuja, the place the event finance establishment additionally launched a brand new initiative, DBN Action for Women in Nigeria (DAWN), to mix financing with enterprise help, credit ensures, grants and market entry for women entrepreneurs.

Speaking on the occasion, DBN Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Dr Tony Okpanachi mentioned entry to finance alone has not enabled sufficient women-led businesses to increase, making it needed to deal with different challenges they face.

“DAWN is about moving gender-focused lending beyond intention and turning access into opportunity,” he mentioned.

The initiative will help women-owned and women-led businesses by way of industrial banks, microfinance establishments, monetary expertise firms, enterprise aggregators, cooperatives and direct channels.

Its precedence sectors embrace agriculture and exports, healthcare, arts and artistic industries, expertise, and inexperienced businesses.

Under the programme, beneficiaries are anticipated to entry financing, credit ensures that assist lenders handle threat, technical help to organize businesses for growth, results-based grants, and connections to prospects, commerce platforms, and enterprise associations.

The AfDB–DBN credit line is anticipated to strengthen the establishments’ efforts to make financing extra accessible to women entrepreneurs.

However, the statements asserting the settlement didn’t present particulars on its lending phrases, disbursement schedule, or the variety of businesses anticipated to learn.

Beyond the gender-focused financing initiative, DBN disclosed that it had disbursed a cumulative N1.4 trillion to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) by way of 84 collaborating monetary establishments as of December 2025.

The financial institution additionally reported that its interventions supported the creation of about 1.6 million jobs nationwide.

Okpanachi mentioned the financial institution would increase its attain beneath a brand new five-year technique, focusing on greater than two million MSMEs, with particular consideration to women-led businesses, youth-led enterprises and states the place entry to financing remained restricted.