Nigeria, Others to benefit from $6.95mn ADFI grant

The Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI) is offering six grants valued at USD6.95 million to finance digital financial inclusion in Africa.

The grant is supported by the French Development Agency (AFD) and hosted by the African Development Bank (AfDB).

A statement from the French Development Agency (AFD) on Friday said the Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI) offer is intended to reduce Africa’s existing gender gap in digital financial services.

ADFI, established by the African Development Bank (AfDB), is co-financed by AFD, the Ministry of the Economy and Finance of the Government of France, the Ministry of Finance of the Government of Luxembourg and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

According to the statement, the purpose of the grant “is to ensure that 332 million more Africans, of which 60percent are women, have access to the formal economy by 2030”.

In February 2021, the AfDB board of Directors approved a series of five grants from this blended finance vehicle, to the benefit of the following organisations: African Cybersecurity Resource Center (ACRC), EthSwitch Share Company, M-Kopa Kenya Limited, Pula Advisors Limited – Kenya, Sinitic Africa and the West African Monetary Agency.

Already a USD 2 million grant has been approved for the African Cybersecurity Resource Center (ACRC) to fight “cybercrime across the African continent while strengthening the resilience of digital financial ecosystems, as more and more transactions are made via mobile phones which raise new security concerns”.

The African Cybersecurity Resource Centre (ACRC) will allow for “the creation of a shared platform to monitor cyber-attacks targeting finance service providers and individuals, the strengthening of their cyber-security via tailor made advisory services, and the fostering of cybersecurity training so as to meet the African demand for expertise”.

From the USD6.95 million funding to be provided, USD 320,000 grant will be to finance inclusion of gender by the West African Monetary Agency (WAMA) for digital financial services in ECOWAS.

“This will allow WAMA to analyze the gender gap in its strategies and operations. The project will cover all members of ECOWAS Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Cabo Verde, Ghana, Guinea, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo” the AFD statement said.

The grant is intended to increase “women’s participation by 35% in digital financial market operations in the region which has a higher gender disparity than other parts of the continent”.