AXIAN Group and the African Development Bank have launched a digital finance programme designed to support more than 34,000 women-led enterprises in five African countries.

Table Of Content

Digital finance and business support
Addressing access to finance
Wider partnership

The initiative, backed by the Bank’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative and the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi), will combine digital financial services with training and business support.

Digital finance and business support

The programme’s first component will provide tailored digital financial products and services to 34,000 women-led micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in Madagascar, Tanzania and Senegal.

Its second component will offer financial literacy, digital skills and entrepreneurship training to 25,000 women in Madagascar, Tanzania, Senegal, Togo and Comoros.

Implementation will be led by AXIAN’s Mixx and MVola platforms in cooperation with local operating companies in the participating countries. The programme will use mobile money services, digital lending and alternative credit assessment tools to reach women entrepreneurs who remain underserved by conventional financial systems.

Support will also include business development services and digital inclusion initiatives. The programme’s stated priorities are to widen access to digital finance, improve financial and digital literacy, develop products suited to women-led businesses, accelerate digital inclusion and help businesses move into the formal economy.

Addressing access to finance

AXIAN and the African Development Bank say the programme responds to limited access to finance, identified as a major constraint for women-owned businesses in Africa. The source material puts the estimated financing gap facing women entrepreneurs at $49 billion.

“Across Africa, millions of women are already running successful businesses. The challenge is not entrepreneurship. It is access to finance, to digital tools and to opportunities for growth,” said Erwan Gelebart, CEO of AXIAN Digibank and Fintech.

Gelebart said Mixx and MVola would use technology and financial innovation to help women entrepreneurs build stronger businesses, create jobs and participate more fully in the digital economy.

Melissa Basque-Roux, coordinator of the African Development Bank’s AFAWA initiative, said the Bank was pleased to support the partnership through AFAWA and We-Fi. She said the collaboration would expand tailored digital financial services, strengthen financial literacy and create new opportunities for women-led businesses.

Wider partnership

The programme builds on the African Development Bank’s wider support for AXIAN Telecom. In January 2025, the Bank approved a $160 million senior corporate loan to AXIAN Telecom to support digital connectivity and financial inclusion across nine African countries. That financing included dedicated funding for 22,000 women entrepreneurs in Madagascar.

AXIAN is described as a pan-African infrastructure and services group with activities spanning energy, digibank and fintech, real estate, financial services and telecommunications. The African Development Bank Group comprises the African Development Bank, the African Development Fund and the Nigeria Trust Fund.

The newly announced programme sets out planned support and targets. The source material does not provide a programme end date, total programme budget, country-by-country allocation of participants or reported implementation results.