African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has set an ambitious target of securing creative industry transactions worth more than $540m at the Creative Africa Nexus Weekend (CANEX WKND) 2026 in Lagos, as the bank intensifies efforts to strengthen financing, investment and commercial opportunities for African creative businesses.

The bank’s President and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Dr George Elombi, announced the target on Thursday, November 5, 2026, during the opening ceremony of the four-day event at the Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and Creative Arts in Lagos.

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Elombi expressed confidence that the transactions generated at this year’s gathering would significantly exceed the $540m recorded during the previous CANEX Weekend in Algiers, Algeria, in October 2024.

He challenged participants to establish a new benchmark for the continent’s creative economy, saying, “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.”

The event, hosted by the Federal Government of Nigeria and organised by Afreximbank, runs from November 5 to 8 under the theme, One People, United in Culture, Creating for the World.

The gathering brings together African and diaspora creatives, investors, financial institutions, policymakers and industry leaders to explore business opportunities across music, film, television, fashion, sports, publishing, gastronomy and visual arts.

According to Afreximbank, the CANEX Deal Room and Creative Pitch Sessions will provide opportunities for entrepreneurs to present bankable projects directly to financiers and investors, with the aim of converting creative ideas into commercially viable businesses.

The bank is also partnering with the Creative Economy Practice at Co-Creation Hub to organise the Creative Economy Finance Summit, which will examine how transactions within the sector can be structured, financed and protected against investment risks.

Beyond the proposed transactions, Elombi used the opening ceremony to draw attention to what he described as a persistent imbalance in the global creative economy, where African talent generates international recognition but often fails to capture a fair share of the financial rewards.

Citing estimates attributed to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, he put the continent’s creative economy at approximately $60bn, representing about two per cent of the global creative industry.

“So too often, the African creators make the hits, and someone else makes the money,” he lamented.

The Afreximbank president identified foreign ownership and control of distribution networks, branding, marketing platforms, intellectual property rights and content catalogues as major obstacles preventing African creators from retaining greater economic value from their work.

“Our talent is global, but our share of the value is not,” he said.

He further warned that digital platforms and algorithms increasingly influence which African music and films reach international audiences, while artificial intelligence presents additional challenges through the unauthorised reproduction and commercial exploitation of creative works.

According to Elombi, improving access to production financing alone would not address these structural problems unless African businesses also developed greater control over distribution, marketing and other profitable stages 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 stated.

Afreximbank’s latest push builds on an expanding financial commitment to the continent’s creative industries.

The bank initially committed $500m to the sector when the Creative Africa Nexus programme was launched in 2020.

The commitment increased to $1bn in 2022 before reaching $2bn in 2024, reflecting its growing focus on creative infrastructure, production, investment and commercial development.

The expanded funding framework covers areas including film production facilities, music infrastructure, fashion manufacturing, sports facilities and other creative enterprises.

Afreximbank has also established a Pan-African Film Fund to support production and distribution, while its investment activities through CANEX Creations Inc. include acquiring and developing African intellectual property, such as film projects and music catalogues.

The 2026 gathering is also placing considerable attention on technology and emerging business opportunities.

Its programme includes discussions on intellectual property investment, artificial intelligence and digital tools, alongside the CANEX CreaThon, organised in partnership with technology company Gebeya.

The innovation competition comes with a $50,000 prize pool intended to encourage creative and technology-driven solutions.

Elombi also called on African governments to protect funding for cultural and creative programmes, warning that reducing such budgets during periods of economic pressure could weaken employment opportunities and undermine the sector’s long-term development.

He particularly advocated stronger recognition of intellectual property as an asset that creators can use to secure financing.

Referencing Nigeria’s Secured Transactions in Movable Assets Act 2017, he argued that properly registered intellectual property, including copyrights and trademarks, could provide a foundation for improved access to credit.

He called for stronger links between collateral registries and intellectual property databases across the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which could make it easier for creative businesses to access financing beyond their domestic markets.

“The right that is not on record cannot be financed. And the royalty no one can audit cannot be priced,” he warned.

The bank president encouraged financial institutions to explore lending arrangements backed by royalty earnings, while urging creators to register their intellectual property and maintain reliable records of their commercial income.

The emphasis on intellectual property and financial access reflects a wider challenge facing Africa’s creative industries: translating cultural influence into sustainable businesses, decent employment and greater participation in international markets.

The African Union has similarly identified limited access to finance, weak intellectual property protection, fragmented markets and infrastructure shortages as structural challenges confronting the continent’s creative and cultural industries.

CANEX has developed into an important platform for addressing some of these concerns since its early editions. The 2024 gathering in Algiers attracted nearly 4,000 participants from 81 countries and facilitated transactions exceeding $540m, providing the benchmark Elombi now hopes Lagos will surpass.

Nigeria’s role as host also carries additional significance, given the country’s influential music, film and fashion industries and its growing ambition to expand the commercial reach of its creative exports.

Looking beyond the Lagos gathering, Elombi said Afreximbank would assess the event’s success not simply by the value of transactions announced but also by the businesses established, studios developed, intellectual property acquired and livelihoods created.

He also pointed to the 2027 Intra-African Trade Fair, scheduled to take place in Lagos, as another opportunity to advance trade and investment across the continent.

“Afreximbank will not stand as a spectator at Africa’s cultural renaissance. Afreximbank will be the banker of Africa’s creative industry,” he pledged.

For the African creative sector, the immediate challenge will be turning the ambitious investment target into completed transactions and lasting commercial opportunities.

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Whether Lagos surpasses the Algiers benchmark will ultimately depend on how effectively the discussions, partnerships and pitches translate into financing and sustainable businesses.