The African Development Bank (AfDB) and AXIAN Group have launched a major digital finance programme designed to strengthen financial inclusion and business opportunities for women entrepreneurs across Africa. The initiative will support more than 34,000 women-led enterprises while providing financial literacy, digital skills and entrepreneurship training to an additional 25,000 women in five African countries.
Supported by the African Development Bank’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative and the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi), the programme seeks to address one of the biggest obstacles facing women-owned businesses: limited access to finance and appropriate financial services.
Africa has the highest rate of female entrepreneurship in the world, but women entrepreneurs continue to face a substantial financing gap estimated at $49 billion. Many businesses struggle to obtain traditional bank financing because of limited collateral, insufficient financial records and restricted access to formal financial services.
The programme will use AXIAN Group’s digital financial services platforms, including Mixx and MVola, to provide digital lending, financial products, financial literacy training, business development services and digital inclusion initiatives. The objective is to give women entrepreneurs practical tools to manage, finance and expand their businesses.
The initiative has two main components. The first will provide tailored digital financial products and services to 34,000 women-led micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in Madagascar, Tanzania and Senegal. The second will provide financial literacy, digital skills and entrepreneurship training to 25,000 women across Madagascar, Tanzania, Senegal, Togo and Comoros.
Mobile money, digital lending and alternative credit assessment technologies will play an important role in reaching entrepreneurs who have historically been underserved by conventional financial institutions. By using digital transaction data and alternative approaches to assessing creditworthiness, the programme aims to make financial services more accessible to women-owned businesses.
AXIAN Digibank and Fintech CEO Erwan Gelebart said the challenge facing women entrepreneurs is not a lack of entrepreneurship but limited access to finance, digital tools and growth opportunities. He said the partnership would use technology and financial innovation to help women build stronger businesses, create jobs and participate more fully in Africa’s digital economy.
Melissa Basque-Roux, Coordinator of the African Development Bank’s AFAWA initiative, said women entrepreneurs are central to Africa’s economic transformation but continue to face barriers to finance, digital tools and business support. She said the partnership with AXIAN, Mixx and MVola would expand tailored digital financial services, strengthen financial literacy and create new opportunities for women-led businesses.
The programme will focus on five priorities: expanding access to digital finance for women-led enterprises, strengthening financial and digital literacy, developing financial products specifically suited to women entrepreneurs, accelerating digital inclusion through mobile technology, and helping women-owned businesses enter and succeed in the formal economy.
Implementation will be led by Mixx and MVola in cooperation with AXIAN’s local operating companies in participating countries. The structure is intended to combine AXIAN’s regional expertise with local knowledge and country-level execution.
The initiative builds on the African Development Bank’s wider partnership with AXIAN Telecom. In January 2025, the Bank approved a $160 million senior corporate loan aimed at expanding digital connectivity and financial inclusion across nine African countries, including dedicated funding to support 22,000 women entrepreneurs in Madagascar.
The new programme reflects the growing role of digital financial services in Africa’s economic development. By combining access to capital with financial education, digital skills and business support, the African Development Bank and AXIAN aim to help thousands of women-owned businesses become more sustainable, create employment and contribute more strongly to local economies.
AXIAN is a pan-African infrastructure and services group operating across 21 countries, with activities spanning energy, digital banking and fintech, real estate, financial services and telecommunications. The group employs more than 9,200 people and positions itself as a partner in the socio-economic transformation of the countries where it operates.
The African Development Bank’s AFAWA initiative focuses on removing structural barriers that prevent women-owned and women-led businesses from accessing finance and expanding their operations. We-Fi is a global partnership supporting women-owned and women-led businesses in developing countries through improved access to finance, markets, technology and capacity-building.
