The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) is targeting more than $540m in transactions at the 2026 edition of the Creative Africa Nexus Weekend (CANEX), as it intensifies efforts to expand financing and investment in Africa’s creative economy.
The President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank, Dr George Elombi, announced the target on Thursday during the opening ceremony of the four-day event in Lagos, expressing confidence that the transactions secured at this year’s gathering would significantly surpass those recorded at the previous edition.
Referring to the $540m benchmark, Elombi challenged participants to set a substantially higher target for Lagos.
“Lagos has to be several multiples of 540. So let Lagos set the mark, and I’m sure that mark will be hard to catch up elsewhere,” he said.
The event, hosted by the Federal Government and organised by Afreximbank, runs from November 5 to 8, 2026, under the theme, One People, United in Culture, Creating for the World.
CANEX 2026 is designed to connect African creative businesses with investors, financiers and international market opportunities across music, film, television, fashion, sports, publishing, gastronomy, visual arts and creative infrastructure.
According to Afreximbank, the CANEX Deal Room and Creative Pitch Sessions will provide opportunities for entrepreneurs to present investment proposals and negotiate transactions with potential financiers.
The programme also features the Creative Economy Finance Summit, organised in partnership with the Creative Economy Practice at Co-Creation Hub, to examine how creative industry businesses can structure transactions, attract capital and reduce investment risks.
Speaking at the event, Elombi highlighted the imbalance between Africa’s global creative influence and the financial returns retained by its creators.
He cited estimates attributed to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, which put the continent’s creative economy at approximately $60bn, representing just two per cent of the global creative industry.
“So too often, the African creators make the hits, and someone else makes the money.
“Our talent is global, but our share of the value is not,” he said.
Elombi also raised concerns about the growing influence of digital algorithms in determining which African music and films reach international audiences, as well as the threat posed by artificial intelligence through the unauthorised reproduction of creative works.
He argued that financing content production alone would not address the industry’s structural challenges unless African businesses also developed ownership and control of distribution, marketing and other commercially valuable parts of the creative value chain.
“We must therefore focus on building a creative ecosystem, focusing not just on the idea generation, on the creation of the concept and the production, but on value capture,” he said.
Afreximbank Raises Creative Industry Financing to $2bn
Afreximbank has progressively expanded its financial commitment to the creative economy, increasing its initial $500m allocation to $1bn before raising it to $2bn in 2024.
The expanded financing commitment is intended to help African creative businesses scale operations, strengthen intellectual property ownership and retain a larger share of the economic value generated by their products.
As part of the initiative, the bank has established a Pan-African Film Fund to support film production and distribution, while investing in recording studios, fashion manufacturing facilities, entertainment venues and other creative infrastructure.
Through its CANEX Creations Inc. platform, Afreximbank has also invested directly in African intellectual property, including film projects and music catalogues.
The Lagos gathering will further explore investment opportunities in intellectual property, artificial intelligence and digital creative tools.
It will also feature the CANEX CreaThon, organised in collaboration with technology company Gebeya, with a $50,000 prize pool to support innovation in the creative sector.
Calls for Intellectual Property-backed Financing
Elombi urged African governments to protect cultural and creative industry budgets despite competing fiscal demands, warning that reductions in funding could undermine employment opportunities and economic development.
He also called on financial institutions to recognise intellectual property as a viable form of collateral, pointing to Nigeria’s Secured Transactions in Movable Assets Act of 2017 as an existing legal framework that could support the process.
According to him, integrating collateral registries with copyright and trademark databases under the African Continental Free Trade Area could make it easier for creators to secure financing across national borders.
“The right that is not on record cannot be financed. And the royalty no one can audit cannot be priced,” he warned.
He encouraged financial institutions to consider lending against future royalty earnings while urging creative entrepreneurs to register their intellectual property and maintain reliable records of their revenues.
