The ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) approved four operations totalling $390 million on 28 September 2026, during the 101st session of its Board of Directors in Lomé, Ecofin Agency reported. Two of them, a Ghanaian gold mine and a Nigeria-Niger railway, account for 84.6% of the total.
Where the money goes
Beneficiary Project Amount Share Azumah Resources Ghana Limited Black Volta Gold Project, Ghana $230 million 59% Kano-Maradi railway (phase 2) Rolling stock and operating equipment, Nigeria-Niger $100 million 26% MOSL Limited Petroleum products supply, Ghana $50 million 13% West African Initiative for Climate-Smart Agriculture (WAICSA) Pilot phase, Ghana, Senegal and Togo $10 million 2.6%
Most of the financing goes to Ghana and Nigeria. The only regional operation, the agriculture pilot, is also the smallest.
A regional development bank financing a mine
The largest commitment is the most notable. A $230 million facility for a single gold project puts EBID directly into mine development, a segment usually financed by commercial banks, commodity traders, streaming companies or equity markets.
According to EBID, the facility is intended to support the project’s development and generate more economic value locally. The timing fits the market. Gold traded around $4,290 an ounce on 30 September, Reuters reported, which improves the economics of new projects.
The concentration is also a risk. Nearly three-fifths of the package depends on one asset, its construction schedule and the gold price. For context, EBID’s total investment portfolio stood at $5.1 billion at the end of September 2025, according to Ecofin Agency.
Rail and fuel: trade and energy security
The $100 million for the Kano-Maradi standard-gauge line will finance rolling stock and operating equipment for its second phase. The project is meant to strengthen trade and mobility between Nigeria and Niger and connect regional transport networks. Financing equipment rather than track suggests the bank is targeting the operational stage of the line.
The $50 million facility for MOSL Limited will support petroleum product supplies in Ghana, which EBID presents as an energy security measure. Fuel import financing is working capital rather than long-term infrastructure, and the terms of this facility have not been disclosed.
How it fits the GRO strategy
EBID frames all four operations within its 2026-2030 Growth, Resilience and Optimization (GRO) strategy, which targets growth, industrialisation, regional integration and resilience in ECOWAS economies. Under that strategy, the bank plans to allocate around 41% of commitments to ESG-related areas, including at least 15% to sustainable energy, Ecofin Agency reported earlier this year.
This first package sits uneasily with that emphasis. A gold mine and petroleum product supply make up 72% of it, while the climate-smart agriculture pilot accounts for 2.6%. EBID President George Agyekum Donkor nonetheless named food security, infrastructure and energy as the bank’s priorities for the coming years.
His own description of the package also differed from the board figures. He referred to about $400 million covering mining, agriculture and road construction, while the approved operations total $390 million and include rail rather than road. The bank’s official communiqué should be used to settle the figures.
Approval is not disbursement
These are board approvals. The pricing, tenors, security packages and co-lenders have not been published, nor has a disbursement timetable. For the gold project, it is not yet known whether EBID’s facility is senior debt, part of a wider syndicate, or conditional on other financing.
What to watch
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Signature and first disbursement of the Black Volta facility, and the identity of any co-lenders.
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Construction milestones at Black Volta and the project’s first production target.
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Delivery of rolling stock for the Kano-Maradi line and the start of cross-border freight services.
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Whether the WAICSA pilot moves to a larger regional programme.
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EBID’s next board approvals, and whether the balance of commitments shifts towards the ESG targets set in the GRO strategy.