Dr. Sam Ankrah Urges Governance-Led Repositioning of African Microfinance at Accra Summit
Dr. Sam Ankrah has called for African microfinance to be treated as a competitive institutional asset class, not a charity project, as he delivered the keynote address at the International Microfinance Investors’ Summit 2026 on August 6 in Accra.
The two-day summit was convened by the Financial Inclusion Advocacy Centre (FIAC) and partners. In the official invitation sent to Dr. Ankrah, FIAC Executive Director Godfrey Lord Crentsil said the forum would bring together “policymakers, regulators, investors, development partners, financial institutions, fintech innovators, academics, and industry leaders from across Africa” to discuss strategies for strengthening the sector.
Held under the theme “Repositioning Microfinance for Investment, Growth and Stability,” the summit aimed to mobilize investment and set practical reforms for inclusive growth across the continent.
Senior executives from central banks, ARB Apex Bank, GHAMFIN, CUA, rural and micro-credit associations, as well as delegations from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia, attended the Accra gathering.
Opening his address, Dr. Ankrah noted the continental scope of the discussion. “We are not having a Ghanaian conversation this morning,” he said. “The same conversation took place in Lagos three days ago. It is taking place in Dakar and Abidjan, in Nairobi and Kigali… Accra is simply where the continent has chosen to hold it this week.”
He framed his core argument in one line: “Governance, plus competency, plus effective regulation and supervision, equals a resilient and robust microfinance ecosystem.” He stressed the three are “mutually inclusive” and that capital is not a fourth input but “the output — what arrives when the other three are present.”
To explain why the sector matters, Dr. Ankrah cited structural data. The International Labour Organization estimates about 86 percent of employment in Sub-Saharan Africa is informal, rising above 90 percent in Central and West Africa. The IFC, he added, puts the small-business financing gap in the region at $331 billion — “roughly the entire annual output of South Africa.”
He pointed to governance failures as the main cause of institutional collapse. In the West African Monetary Union, 533 institutions serve 19 million clients, yet portfolio-at-risk stood at 8.9 percent at end-2024 against a 3 percent ceiling, with nine institutions under administration. Nigeria revoked 225 microfinance bank licences in two waves, while Ghana revoked 347 in one day in 2019. Kenya’s microfinance banks have posted losses for nine straight years.
“None of those institutions failed because the minimum capital was too low,” he said. “They failed because nobody with authority was willing or able to say no to the man who owned the building.” He described Ghana’s new ownership caps as “the most direct available attack on the precise mechanism that has destroyed institutions across this continent.”
On competency, Dr. Ankrah warned that capital can be raised in 90 days but capability cannot. He questioned whether boards, risk functions and management information systems improve alongside balance sheets, noting many institutions still cannot produce audited accounts, portfolio ageing reports and board minutes on demand.
He made a parallel call to regulators. “Regulation is writing the rule. Supervision is knowing, continuously, whether the rule is being followed,” he said, citing Kenya where digital lenders grew from 32 to 85 while supervised MFB assets fell to a decade low. He urged supervisors to match capacity with ambition and to move from “compliance-heavy policing” to genuine risk-based supervision.
Turning to Ghana’s ongoing reforms, he offered three observations. First, publish consolidation data. “Investors cannot price a consolidation they cannot see,” he said. Second, issue governance directives before capital deadlines. Third, capital floors alone do not deliver stability, pointing to Nigeria’s licence revocations and India’s post-2010 conduct-based rebuild as lessons.
Technology, he said, is changing the economics of delivery. Africa processed about $1.1 trillion through mobile money in 2024 — roughly two-thirds of the global total. Account ownership in Sub-Saharan Africa rose from 34 percent in 2014 to 58 percent in 2024, creating a data footprint that can support new underwriting.
But he cautioned that digitization accelerates what already exists. “A badly governed institution that digitises simply makes bad loans faster,” he noted, referencing Kenya’s digital credit boom and Rwanda’s shift from cooperatives to mobile wallets.
On funding, Dr. Ankrah presented stark figures. Global microfinance-focused funds hold about $23 billion. Africa-focused impact funds hold $18.6 billion, yet only $692 million — 4 percent — is allocated to microfinance. African funds also hold higher loan-loss reserves and more cash because they cannot deploy it.
He said the solution is not a lack of money but a shortage of investable institutions and legible risk. Blended finance remains underused: across 300+ transactions, each dollar of concessional capital mobilized $4.10 in commercial capital. He also flagged currency mismatch as a killer and pointed to existing tools like TCX, which has hedged over $17 billion, and the African Guarantee Fund.
For institutions facing recapitalization, he listed options: rights issues, strategic equity, diaspora capital, subordinated and mezzanine debt, convertibles, and holding-company structures. He noted recent Kenyan deals where fintechs took majority stakes in MFBs, and urged associations to build pooled regional vehicles to make tickets fundable.
Speaking from the investor’s perspective, he listed why deals are rejected: late or unsigned accounts, shifting PAR numbers, boards dominated by family, undisclosed related-party lending, and pitches focused only on market size. “Not one is a capital failure,” he said. “Every one is a governance or competency failure.”
He closed with direct requests. To regulators: publish data, sequence reforms, and resource supervision.
To institutions: declare pathways honestly, including mergers, and fix governance before chasing capital. To investors and DFIs: bring blended structures and technical assistance. To associations: build training and pooled facilities at sector scale.
“From Dakar to Nairobi, from Addis to Accra, the pattern is identical,” he concluded. “Capital follows governance. Supervision must match ambition. And digitisation without risk management simply accelerates the losses.”
The summit is expected to produce a roadmap for consolidating microfinance institutions, strengthening supervision, and channeling blended finance into the sector in line with the theme of investment, growth and stability.
