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Co-funded by the European Union

Supporting the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development

Location

Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Togo, Cape Verde

Topic

Access to Finance

Status

Completed

Year

2021-2022

Objective

The ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development is the financial arm of the Economic Community of West African States and its 15 member states: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

Description

The joint workplan developed with EBID covered technical trainings (trade finance, public procurement, …) and focused on skills management inside the institution. In order to enhance the knowledge and skills of its highly qualified staff, the Bank has defined the bases of a new learning approach and plans to launch an internal Academy.

This was supported by the ICR Facility by:

  • A market study to determine which Learning Management System (LMS) was best suited to the Bank’s needs. A platform was selected, and EBID acquired a license allowing the Bank to access pre-existing courses and to develop and upload their own training material.
  • A training of trainers, to take advantage of the existing skills inside the institution and allow people to share their knowledge with their colleagues in a structured and efficient manner.
  • A training in leadership and change management for EBID staff and management, which contributed to the creation of a change management process towards a common organisational culture within EBID. A training on results-based management was also delivered.

These trainings were adapted to online modular formats in order to be uploaded on the new LMS and to be integrated in an internal training programme. Staff from the human resources department and members of the newly created pool of trainers were trained on how to create content and how to manage the platform.
The ICR Facility supported EBID in building a coherent culture of learning and increasing its training offer in order to develop the skills of its staff.

Result

Based on the learnings of the intervention, EBID set up a new learning management system, which launched in March 2023. Several of the recommendations of the trade finance strategic workshop have been implemented: one new person was hired to work specifically on the topic of trade finance, and one person was assigned to follow-trade finance activities in the back-office. Furthermore, EBID secured three new credit lines for trade finance amounting to a total of EUR 200 million.

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