African bankers urged to build capacity to withstand global shocks

Ms Gwen Mwaba Managing Director Trade Finance and Correspondent Banking at Afreximbank. [Brian Ngugi, Standard]

African bankers are not insulated from global crises and must build capacity to respond to external shocks, a senior official at the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) said on Thursday, pointing to the continent's delayed access to COVID-19 vaccines and HIV therapies as a stark warning.

Gwen Mwaba, Afreximbank's Managing Director for Trade Finance and Correspondent Banking, said the pan African bank was spearheading training to ensure African financial institutions can navigate a volatile global landscape, from the Ukraine crisis to ongoing Middle East tensions.

"We are not immune... even though we're sitting far away in Africa, ultimately we are impacted because we are not insulated from the rest of the world," Mwaba said in an interview ahead of the bank's 25th African Trade Finance Seminar in Abidjan from November 4-6.

She drew parallels to the COVID 19 pandemic, where border closures left Africa scrambling for protective equipment and waiting years for vaccines, and the earlier HIV crisis, which saw a seven-year lag for therapeutics to reach the continent.

"If Africa had not taken steps... two years could have been 10 years," Mwaba said, referring to Afreximbank's crisis interventions. "We can't allow that."

The Ukraine conflict, which disrupted fertiliser supplies from the Black Sea region, forced another rapid response. "Again, African banks had to quickly intervene," Mwaba said, noting the Afreximbank helped pivot African importers to new suppliers in Europe and the US.

The upcoming training will focus on practical skills, including structuring complex oil and gas financing deals and syndicating loans to fund large projects that single African lenders cannot shoulder alone.

"It's really important for us... to make African bankers and corporates attuned to the fact that we are not immune," Mwaba emphasised.

The seminar is part of a broader capacity-building push that includes Afreximbank's "correspondent bank" initiative, which aims to provide confirmation lines to 500 African banks by 2026 to maintain trade flows when international lenders retreat during crises.

"So that Africa's food security is protected, our health security is protected, and we can still continue to import capital goods," Mwaba said.