Evaluation of the Credit Line to the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) (CNG1032)

Objectives for AFD’s credit line to DBN were fixed at the multistakeholder Project’s level.

The overall objective of the Project was to foster diversified economic growth generating employment by providing MSMEs with a better access to finance and banking service. To this aim, the project targeted two specific objectives:
- Increase the availability and access to mid-term and long-term credit for MSMEs and
- Develop a new offer of financial products and increase access to financing for Nigerian SMEs in the banking sector (strategy, product, organization, procedures, risk analysis…).


AFD’s credit line to DBN contributed to the establishment of a well-managed national development finance institution. Despite the Covid crisis and the challenges linked to the creation of a new structure, the Project has achieved good results. The concessionality of the credit line was justified in the context of a newly-established institution. In the future, concessionality should be justified by clear additionality at end beneficiary level (ex: thematic line). Besides, the capacity of DBN to reach scale based on the credit line offer has to be confirmed. DBN is actively working on this aspect.