51338 - SLGP RSF Access Bank Sierra Leone

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Summary of Investment Information

Project Number

51338

Company Name

SLGP RSF Access Bank Sierra Leone

Date SPI Disclosed

Apr 28, 2025

Country

Sierra Leone

Region

Africa

Projected Board Date

May 30, 2025

Environmental Category

FI-2 - Limited

Status

Pending Disbursement

Last Updated Date

Nov 19, 2025

Department

Regional Industry - FIG Africa

Industry

Financial Markets

Previous Events

Approved : Jun 16, 2025
Signed : Jun 24, 2025

Sector

Commercial Banking - SME Finance

Additional Project Attributes

Blended Finance

Project Description

The project entails an unfunded Risk Sharing Facility (“RSF) of up to US 10 million equivalent in LCY (Sierra Leonean Leones), guaranteeing 50% of an up to US$20 million small and medium enterprises (“SME”) loan portfolio to be originated by Access Bank Sierra Leone Limited (“Access SL” or the “ABSL”) based in Sierra Leone. The Project will support the Bank to enhance its lending to SMEs, particularly women-owned and managed SMEs (“WSME and WMSMEs”). The Project is the first of IFC’s re-engagement in Sierra Leone after a GTFP transaction with Guaranty Trust Bank (Sierra Leone) in 2021. The Project would be processed under IFC’s Small Loans Guarantee Program (“SLGP”), a programmatic approach to de-risk and scale-up financing for SMEs in eligible countries.

Associated Advisory Engagement

IFC will provide complimentary advisory support embedded in the RSF aimed at helping the bank effectively deploy the RSF through training and to build capacity of their SMEs.

Sponsor / Cost / Location

Product Line	IFC Investment (million USD)
Risk Management
Guarantee	10.0
Loan
Equity

IFC's loan to the financial institution described in this SII is targeted for on-lending to the following sector(s):

Product Type	Use of Proceeds
Guarantee	Loans to SME Borrowers

IFC's Definitions of Targeted Sectors can be found here.

Development Impact

The most significant, expected project-level outcome is increased access to finance for SMEs as well as WSMEs. Beyond the Project, IFC anticipates that this transaction as part of a IFC’s programmatic approach in Sierra Leone that helps address the critical challenges in Sierra Leone's SME finance market by demonstrating the commercial viability of new SME lending business models serving a wide array of SMEs, will promote greater competitiveness in the market and help expand financing to unserved and underserved SMEs.

IFC’s expected additionality in this Project is both financial and non-financial: i) IFC will provide financial additionality through a risk mitigation tool that is not readily available in the Sierra Leone market. The RSF will allow the Bank to partially mitigate the challenges faced in terms of perceived and real risk of lending to MSMEs, with IFC covering up to 50% of the risk of the defined portfolio. This will be the first RSF offered to the Bank by IFC and will enable ABSL to expand lending to the MSME segment and ii) IFC will extend additionality through a complimentary advisory support embedded in the RSF aimed at helping the bank effectively deploy the RSF through technical training and operational implementation support to help embed the RSFs into the Banks processes. There is also an ongoing discussion about IFC’s advisory services offering in supporting ABSL to develop its women and agri strategy in order to scale its pipeline in these two priority sectors.

Indicator	Metrics	Comments	Calendar Year 2022	Calendar Year 2023	Calendar Year 2024
Value of Outstanding Loans, SMEs	$	Per IFC Definition	Not Available	Not Available	Not Available
Number of Outstanding Loans, SMEs	loans		Not Available	Not Available	Not Available
Number of Outstanding Loans, WomenOwned Smes	loans		Not Available	Not Available	Not Available
Value of Outstanding Loans, SMEs	$		Not Available	Not Available	Not Available
Value of Outstanding Loans, WomenOwned Smes	$		Not Available	Not Available	Not Available

E&S Category Rationale / Risks and Mitigation

Environmental & Social Categorization Rationale / Key Risks & Potential Impacts
The project consists of an unfunded risk sharing facility (“RSF”) guaranteeing 50% of a small and medium enterprises (“SME”) loan portfolio to be originated by Access Bank Sierra Leone Limited (ABSL). The Project will support the Bank to enhance its lending to SMEs, particularly women SMEs (“WSME”) with a 25% carve out for WSMEs. The Bank indicated exposure to sectors such as Construction and Real Estate; Consumer Goods; Finance and Insurance; Plastic and Rubber; and Telecommunications. The E&S risks and impacts associated with the supported SME activities are considered limited and readily addressed through established mitigation measures. These risks are typically associated with occupational health and safety, waste and hazardous waste management, and air emissions, among others. The labor practices at AFB are generally aligned with IFC Performance Standard 2: Labor and Working Conditions. However, the bank will have to develop employee grievance mechanism. The overall portfolio risk is considered medium. For this investment, the Bank will be required to screen eligible SME loans against the IFC Exclusion List and Sierra Leone environmental and social laws and regulations. The Project has been categorized as FI-2 in accordance with IFC’s Sustainability Policy.
The Project will not support coal-related activities, IFC Exclusion List or higher risk business activities that may include: a) involuntary resettlement, b) risk of adverse impacts on indigenous peoples, c) significant risks to or impacts on the environment, community health and safety, biodiversity, cultural heritage, or d) significant occupational health and safety risks.

Access Bank Sierra Leone has a procedure for the management of environmental and social (E&S) risks in the loan procedure. The procedure is based on the IFC exclusion list, compliance with national and international regulations, the Equator Principles and IFC performance standards. It clearly defines roles and responsibilities. E&S due diligence assessment is conducted for applicable credit whose value is SLE 24,855,000 (1,092,282.53 US Dollars) at the minimum. There shall be no due diligence assessment/client engagement restriction for credit requests below the threshold to Oil and Gas, Power, Manufacturing, Agriculture, Cement and Mining. ABSL has an E&S Officer who does not have an E&S background. However, he received training from the Access Bank Group E&S officer. As part of this project, AFB will be required to: 1) Improve the visit report for the environmental and social risk assessment by including a deadline in the recommendation; 2) Develop an external grievance mechanism; 3) set up an employee grievance mechanism. The rest of the team have not received an E&S training, but they were shown how to use the tools in the ESMS.

S.no	Title	Anticipated Completion Date
1	Update ESMS	06/15/2025
2	E&S Training Plan	07/30/2025
3	E&S Training	01/30/2026
4	ESMS Implementation	01/30/2026
5	Enhance HR policies and procedures in line with IFC Performance Standards 2	01/30/2026

Contacts

For Inquiries About the Project, Contact

Access Bank Sierra Leone
Mr Ganiyu Sanni
Country Managing Director
+2348029496845 / +23233424221
GANIYU.SANNI@accessbankplc.com
Access Bank (SL) Ltd, 30 Siaka Stevens Street, Freetown, Sierra Leone
https://sierraleone.accessbankplc.com/

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Telephone: 202-473-3800
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IFC supports its clients in addressing environmental and social issues arising from their business activities by requiring its real sector clients to set up and administer appropriate grievance mechanisms and/or procedures to address complaints from Affected Communities in relation to environmental and social issues arising from IFC's clients' business activities. Since 2012, IFC's Financial Intermediary clients applying the Performance Standards are required to develop External Communications Mechanisms to receive and review inquiries or complaints from any interested party regarding the E&S risks and impacts of their operations.

For IFC projects that are active or under consideration, individual(s), or their authorized representative(s), who allege they have been or will be adversely affected by E&S risks or impacts arising from IFC's clients' business activities, may submit a complaint to IFC directly for consideration. When receiving an E&S complaint, IFC engages with complainants and works with its clients to find solutions to E&S concerns as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Complaints can be submitted to IFC online at www.ifc.org/escomplaints or by email to EScomplaints@ifc.org.

IFC complaint response is separate from and complementary to IFC’s clients’ project level grievance mechanisms and IFC’s Independent Accountability Mechanism (CAO). Lodging a complaint directly with IFC does not, at any time, restrict access to CAO.

Affected communities have unrestricted access to the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), the independent accountability mechanism for IFC and MIGA. CAO facilitates the resolution of complaints related to IFC and MIGA projects and sub-projects, undertakes reviews of IFC’s and MIGA’s environmental and social compliance, fosters public accountability for their commitments, and enhances the environmental and social performance of IFC and MIGA.

Independent of IFC and MIGA management and reporting directly to the IFC and MIGA Boards of Executive Directors, CAO helps resolve issues raised about the environmental and social impacts of projects through a neutral, collaborative, problem-solving approach via its Dispute Resolution function. It also reviews IFC’s and MIGA’s compliance with environmental and social policies, assesses related harm, and recommends remedial actions through its Compliance function. Additionally, CAO provides advice to IFC, MIGA, and their Boards to enhance environmental and social sustainability performance and minimize the risk of harm.

Complaints may relate to environmental and social harm regarding any aspect of the planning, implementation, or impact of a project or sub-project, and can be made by any individual, group, community, entity, or other party affected or likely to be affected by the environmental or social impacts of an IFC- or MIGA-financed business activity.

Complaints can be submitted by any of the following methods:

Online form: available at https://www.cao-ombudsman.org/
Mail/Hand Delivery to: 2121 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA
Voice mail: +1 202 458 1973
Email: cao@worldbankgroup.org
SMS, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal: +1 202 650 2627

CAO receives and addresses complaints in accordance with the CAO Policy, which can be accessed at: https://www.cao-ombudsman.org/policies-guidelines.

This Summary of Investment Information (SII) is prepared by IFC to disclose a factual summary of the main elements of the potential investment. It also includes findings and recommendations related to environmental and social considerations regarding this potential investment. The purpose of the SII is to enhance the transparency of IFC’s activities. For any project documentation or data included or attached herein, whether prepared by the project sponsor or otherwise, authorization has been given for public release by the project sponsor. IFC considers that this SII is of adequate quality for release to the public, but has not necessarily independently verified all of the project information therein. It is distributed in advance of IFC Board of Directors’ consideration and may be periodically updated thereafter. Board dates are estimates only and this document should not be construed as presuming the outcome of the Board Directors’ decision. The following SII is disclosed in accordance with IFC's Access to Information Policy (AIP) that went into effect on January 1, 2012.

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