IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-05026886.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Financing SMEs in Africa: Rethinking the Role of Development Finance Institutions

Author

Listed:
  • Florian Léon

    (FERDI - Fondation pour les Etudes et Recherches sur le Développement International)

Abstract

In Africa, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face a chronic financing gap that hinders their growth and the continent's economic development. Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) are often seen as a solution to bridge this gap, particularly through indirect support to local banks. However, an in-depth analysis of their impact reveals mixed results. While targeted beneficiaries benefit from these programs, it is at the expense of other borrowers. There is a need to rethink the support for these DFI-intermediated financing schemes aimed at supporting the SME sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Florian Léon, 2025. "Financing SMEs in Africa: Rethinking the Role of Development Finance Institutions," Post-Print hal-05026886, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05026886
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05026886v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-05026886v1/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aydın, Halil Ibrahim & Bircan, Cagatay & De Haas, Ralph, 2024. "Blended Finance and Female Entrepreneurship," CEPR Discussion Papers 18763, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Jeremy C. Stein, 2002. "Information Production and Capital Allocation: Decentralized versus Hierarchical Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 1891-1921, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antonio Acconcia & Alfredo Del Monte & Luca Pennacchio & Germana Scepi, 2011. "IPO Underpricing and the Location of Firms," CSEF Working Papers 295, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 04 Feb 2021.
    2. Song Zhang & Liang Han & Konstantinos Kallias & Antonios Kallias, 2021. "The value of in-person banking: evidence from U.S. small businesses," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1393-1435, November.
    3. Paolo Emilio Mistrulli & Valerio Vacca, 2015. "Social capital and the cost of credit: evidence from a crisis," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1009, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    4. Modina, Michele & Pietrovito, Filomena & Gallucci, Carmen & Formisano, Vincenzo, 2023. "Predicting SMEs’ default risk: Evidence from bank-firm relationship data," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 254-268.
    5. Bénédicte Gendron, 2004. "Why emotional capital matters in education and in labour? toward an Optimal exploitation of human capital and knowledge management," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques r04113, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    6. Jennie Bai & Massimo Massa, 2021. "Is Human-Interaction-based Information Substitutable? Evidence from Lockdown," NBER Working Papers 29513, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Roman Inderst & Manuel Klein, 2007. "Innovation, endogenous overinvestment, and incentive pay," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(4), pages 881-904, December.
    8. Fabio Panetta & Fabiano Schivardi & Matthew Shum, 2009. "Do Mergers Improve Information? Evidence from the Loan Market," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(4), pages 673-709, June.
    9. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2018_017 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Claessens, Stijn & van Horen, Neeltje, 2012. "Being a foreigner among domestic banks: Asset or liability?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1276-1290.
    11. Correa, Ricardo & Goldberg, Linda S., 2022. "Bank complexity, governance, and risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    12. Tarantino, Emanuele & Pavanini, Nicola & Mayordomo, Sergio, 2020. "The Impact of Alternative Forms of Bank Consolidation on Credit Supply and Financial Stability," CEPR Discussion Papers 15069, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Bertrand, Jérémie & Murro, Pierluigi, 2022. "Firm–bank “odd couples” and trade credit: Evidence from Italian small- and medium-sized enterprises," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    14. Berger, Allen N. & Boot, Arnoud W.A., 2024. "Financial intermediation services and competition analyses: Review and paths forward for improvement," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    15. Morrison, Alan & Lóránth, Gyöngyi, 2009. "Internal Reporting Systems, Compensation Contracts, and Bank Regulation," CEPR Discussion Papers 7155, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Martin Brown & Steven Ongena & Pinar Yeşin, 2014. "Information Asymmetry and Foreign Currency Borrowing by Small Firms," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 56(1), pages 110-131, March.
    17. Bellucci, Andrea & Borisov, Alexander & Zazzaro, Alberto, 2013. "Do banks price discriminate spatially? Evidence from small business lending in local credit markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4183-4197.
    18. Pietro Alessandrini & Michele Fratianni & Luca Papi & Alberto Zazzaro, 2016. "The asymmetric burden of regulation: will local banks survive?," Mo.Fi.R. Working Papers 125, Money and Finance Research group (Mo.Fi.R.) - Univ. Politecnica Marche - Dept. Economic and Social Sciences.
    19. Leslie A. Robinson & Phillip C. Stocken, 2013. "Location of Decision Rights Within Multinational Firms," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(5), pages 1261-1297, December.
    20. Dongmin Kong & Ling Zhu & Ni Qin, 2022. "Does corruption shape firm centralisation? Evidence from state‐owned enterprises in China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(3), pages 3365-3395, September.
    21. Sauro Mocetti & Marcello Pagnini & Enrico Sette, 2017. "Information Technology and Banking Organization," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 51(3), pages 313-338, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    DFI; Development Finance Institutions; Africa; Small and medium-sized enterprises SMEs;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05026886. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.