BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo — African financial institutions demonstrated notable resilience in the years following the Covid-19 pandemic, but the continent’s trade finance gap remains stubbornly wide, according to a new report released by the African Development Bank, AfDB.
The fifth edition of the AfDB’s Trade Finance Report, covering the period from 2020 to 2024, was launched on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, at the Bank Group’s 2026 Annual Meetings in Brazzaville.
The report provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of how African banks navigated the post-pandemic trade environment, and for the first time quantifies the contribution of development finance institutions to trade finance across the continent.
The trade deficit could widen further under the pressure of renewed geopolitical tensions and global supply chain disruptions.
A gap that remains vast
The report estimates that unmet demand for trade finance in Africa ranged from 74 billion to 92 billion US dollars in 2024, with the lower figure representing roughly 5.4 per cent of the region’s total merchandise trade that year.
Anthony Simpasa, Director of the Macroeconomic Policy, Forecasting and Research Department at the AfDB, said the gap had narrowed over the review period, declining by nearly 10 per cent between 2019 and 2024, largely because of interventions by multilateral development banks, governments, export credit agencies and global banks. Without that support, he said, the annual gap could have exceeded 100 billion dollars during the 2020–2024 period.
But Simpasa warned that the progress was fragile.
“Renewed geopolitical tensions and disruptions to global supply chains and trade flows could reverse post-pandemic progress in narrowing the trade finance gap,” he said, adding that tighter correspondent banking risk appetite alone could push the gap to between 86.6 billion and 102.6 billion dollars by 2027, at least 17.7 per cent above the 2024 level.
“This is potentially erasing a decade of gains,” he cautioned.
Commercial banks in retreat
One of the report’s more striking findings is the declining share of African trade intermediated by commercial banks.
Over the five years under review, commercial banks handled an average of 23 per cent of Africa’s total trade — a sharp fall from the 40 per cent they intermediated during the pre-pandemic period of 2011 to 2019.
Foreign exchange liquidity has emerged as the single biggest constraint on banks’ ability to expand their trade finance activity.
Some 36 per cent of banks surveyed identified limited foreign exchange liquidity as their primary obstacle between 2020 and 2024, double the 18 per cent that cited it in the preceding five-year period.
Digital adoption has also lagged.
Only 28 per cent of the banks surveyed reported having put in place digital tools or platforms for trade finance operations, with high implementation costs and inadequate technological infrastructure cited as the main barriers.
Intra-African trade on the rise
Against that backdrop, the report points to one area of meaningful progress: intra-African trade.
Between 2020 and 2024, trade between African countries accounted for 34 per cent of total bank-intermediated trade on the continent, representing an 89 percentage-point increase above pre-pandemic levels.
Development finance institutions have underpinned much of that momentum, facilitating approximately 32 billion dollars in trade finance annually over the review period, equivalent to around 3 per cent of Africa’s total merchandise trade.
Calls for structural change
A panel discussion following the report’s launch drew calls for more systemic intervention.
Admassu Tadesse, Group President and Managing Director of the Trade and Development Bank, pointed to digitisation, guarantee mechanisms and asset management innovations as promising tools, and argued for broader structural initiatives to amplify their impact.
Didier Acouetey, Senior Adviser to AfDB President Sidi Ould Tah for the Private Sector, highlighted the New African Financial Architecture for Development as a potential turning point.
“NAFAD gives us, for the first time, a coherent continental framework to close the trade finance gap — not project by project, but systemically. That is the shift that changes everything for African SMEs,” he said.
Francisca Tatchouop Belobe, the African Union Commission’s Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry and Minerals, pressed commercial banks to treat small and medium-sized enterprise lending as a core business rather than a peripheral one.
“SMEs are too large for microfinance, too small for corporate banking, but far too commercially important to be left outside the trade finance system,” he said.
Mehdi Tanani, Regional Director for Central Africa at Proparco, argued that closing the gap required building a more resilient ecosystem rather than layering on additional restrictions.
“Africa will not close its trade finance gap by adding constraints, but by building a more resilient, more digital, and more sustainable trade finance ecosystem,” he said.
