• The $11.5 million deal aims to boost Chad’s imports and food security.
• It brings Proparco’s total guarantees to Ecobank to €125 million since 2018.
• The initiative supports Africa’s broader trade finance and resilience goals.

Ecobank and Proparco signed on November 3, 2025, a €10 million ($11.5 million) trade finance guarantee for Ecobank Chad during the Africa Financial Summit (AFIS 2025). The agreement aims to facilitate the import of raw materials and strengthen the country’s food security.

This operation raises to €125 million the total amount of guarantees granted by Proparco to the pan-African banking group since the launch of the Trade Finance program in 2018, which now covers seven African countries, including Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Liberia.

“This renewed partnership reflects our shared commitment to strengthening the economic resilience of Chad and the region,” said Jeremy Awori, Group CEO of Ecobank. “By improving access to essential raw materials, we support local industrialization and value creation across the continent,” he added.

The initiative is part of the Food & Agriculture Resilience Mission (FARM), launched in 2022 by France, the European Union, the G7, and the African Union to enhance food security in vulnerable countries. It is also linked to the AFD Group’s Choose Africa program, which supports African start-ups and small businesses with financing and technical assistance.

“We are pleased to include Ecobank Chad in the program we have been co-developing since 2018,” said Djalal Khimdjee, Deputy CEO of Proparco. “This partnership will help local companies import essential inputs and integrate into global value chains,” he added.

According to Afreximbank, Africa faces a trade finance gap of about $100 billion annually, underscoring the ongoing challenge for African firms to access reliable and affordable financing instruments. The African Development Bank estimates the deficit at over $120 billion, while intra-African trade accounts for only around 15% of the continent’s total exchanges, far below Asia and Europe, where it exceeds 60%.

In this context, the Ecobank–Proparco initiative holds strategic significance. In Chad, foreign trade represents nearly 69% of GDP (2020), yet local businesses still struggle to obtain financing. The country’s shallow banking system offers loans and letters of credit, but at discouraging rates between 16% and 25%, which severely limits small and medium-sized enterprises’ ability to finance imports or enter regional markets.

The Ecobank–Proparco Trade Finance program seeks to address these structural constraints by reducing credit risk in frontier markets. Leveraging Ecobank’s pan-African network and its French subsidiary, Ecobank International, the mechanism aims to secure payments between African banks and international suppliers. According to Ecobank, the program has already supported thousands of African businesses importing essential goods such as rice, wheat, fertilizers, and industrial raw materials.