The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, has partnered with Standard Chartered Bank to introduce a new $300 million risk-sharing facility aimed at strengthening supply chains and accelerating business growth across Africa.
The initiative will roll out supply chain finance solutions in eight African markets: Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. It will target key sectors including agriculture, healthcare, and manufacturing, enabling buyers to support their suppliers with faster payments and improved access to working capital for production, wage payments, and hiring.
Under the facility, IFC will provide guarantees of up to $150 million from its own account, with an initial $100 million tranche committed to support transactions in both US dollars and selected local currencies. The program covers various supply chain financing instruments such as payables finance, receivables discounting, and pre-shipment finance.
Over the next three years, the partnership is expected to unlock approximately $1.9 billion in supply chain finance transactions. It aims to directly support more than 500 suppliers — many of them small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) — while indirectly benefiting over one million farmers across domestic and global value chains.
The facility represents IFC’s first project under its Global Supply Chain Finance Program and the Africa Trade and Supply Chain Recovery Initiative, supported by the International Development Association (IDA) Private Sector Window Blended Finance Facility.
Global demand for supply chain finance reached an estimated $2.7 trillion in 2025, reflecting an 8% year-on-year increase. However, adoption in emerging markets, particularly in lower-income and fragile contexts, has lagged due to risk concerns and banks’ preference for developed markets. This new risk-sharing arrangement seeks to address those barriers by mitigating risks on short-term trade and supply chain assets.
The partnership is expected to enhance linkages between large buyers and their suppliers, improve delivery reliability, reduce the cost of working capital for SMEs, and contribute to job creation throughout African value chains.
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