AFREXIMBANK: Bank of the Rich on a Continent of the Poor

By Abdul Lauya

For 32 years, the African Export-Import Bank, better known as Afreximbank, has positioned itself as Africa’s answer to development finance, promising to drive intra-African trade, industrialization, and prosperity.

But three decades later, the evidence tells a sobering story: the bank’s funds and credit lines mostly flow to large corporations, multinational conglomerates, and commercial banks, rarely trickling down to the rural poor or the informal sector that forms the backbone of Africa’s economy.

Afreximbank was established in 1993 by African governments, the African Development Bank (AfDB), and private investors to stimulate trade among African countries and reduce dependence on Western financial institutions. Its mission was noble, to finance, promote, and expand intra- and extra-African trade.

Yet, while the bank has grown in size, reach, and prestige, now boasting assets exceeding $30 billion and headquarters in Cairo, its impact remains most visible among elites and corporate giants rather than among farmers, traders, and artisans who represent the real Africa.

Critics argue that Afreximbank’s model mirrors that of conventional development finance institutions, lending through intermediary banks, offering lines of credit to established players, and financing big infrastructure and trade deals that rarely filter down to the grassroots.

This means that for millions of struggling Africans, particularly in countries like Nigeria where inflation, unemployment, and multidimensional poverty have reached alarming levels, Afreximbank remains a distant institution, powerful in rhetoric but invisible in real life.

The irony is profound: a bank created “for Africans, by Africans” has become, in practice, a financial fortress for the rich and well-connected, inaccessible to the very people it claims to uplift.

Nigeria’s example is particularly glaring. Despite being one of the bank’s largest shareholders and Africa’s biggest economy, the country’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which employ over 80% of the population, rarely benefit directly from Afreximbank’s funds.

Instead, the bank’s major transactions are routed through Nigerian commercial banks and large corporations, institutions that often impose stringent collateral requirements and high interest rates, effectively locking out small businesses and local innovators.

Economists say this approach perpetuates inequality by concentrating wealth and opportunity in the hands of a few while leaving the majority in perpetual struggle.

Even as Afreximbank finances major trade facilitation projects, hosts glamorous annual meetings, and announces billion-dollar partnerships, Africa’s poverty gap continues to widen, an uncomfortable contradiction for a bank born to solve precisely that problem.

Supporters of the bank argue that its focus on macro-level financing creates enabling environments for trade and investment. But for many Africans, the results remain too distant and abstract to measure in improved livelihoods.

In the end, Afreximbank’s story reads like that of a continent at war with itself, rich in resources but poor in distribution, full of vision yet thin on inclusion.

After 32 years, the question lingers: can Afreximbank reinvent itself to serve not just the powerful, but also the powerless?

Until then, it remains what its critics call it, a bank of the rich, on a continent of the poor.