Only 60 startups will advance to a five-day masterclass, with 20 finalists competing for $65,000 in seed capital at the September 2026 awards

More than 6,000 startups from across West Africa have applied for the second ECOWAS Startups Award, the ECOWAS Commission disclosed in Abuja on Monday, as the regional body moves to narrow the field to 60 promising businesses and strengthen their prospects for sustainable growth.

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The Acting Director, Private Sector and Industry, ECOWAS Commission, Oluonye Peter, said the 60 selected startups would undergo a five-day masterclass before 20 finalists are chosen to pitch for the top three positions at the award ceremony scheduled for September.

The three winners will receive seed capital of $30,000, $20,000 and $15,000 respectively, giving the competition a combined prize value of $65,000.

But for the organisers, the financial awards are only part of the attraction.

Peter said the programme was designed to address some of the persistent obstacles that prevent promising startups from turning innovative ideas into viable businesses, particularly weak managerial capacity, limited access to finance, difficulty entering markets and regulatory challenges.

“The ECOWAS Start-up Awards is designed to mobilise innovation, particularly by start-ups,” he said.

Many young companies, Peter explained, develop solutions capable of transforming existing systems but struggle when it comes to commercialising those ideas.

“They have innovated to address unique and specific solutions that ordinarily have breakthroughs or disruption in the system, but they cannot take their products to the market because they have little market preparation,” he said.

That gap between innovation and commercial success is at the heart of the initiative.

Rather than treating the award as a one-off competition, the ECOWAS Commission plans to support the winners beyond the ceremony through an accelerator programme intended to help them build stronger and more sustainable enterprises.

“We have realised that it’s not just enough to hand over a cheque to the winner. We want to accompany the winner to the point where the firm becomes a success story, and we are able to showcase them as inspirations to the youth,” Peter said.

The selected businesses will receive training in business management, capacity building and other areas intended to help them move from the early stages of entrepreneurship into sustained growth.

They will also have opportunities to engage venture capitalists, impact investors, development partners and financial institutions, creating a pathway from recognition to investment and market access.

The competition will cover FinTech, HealthTech, AgriTech and Food Systems, EdTech and Skills Development, CleanTech, Climate and Green Innovation, as well as Tourism, Hospitality and Travel Tech.

Peter said the sectors reflected areas of economic potential within the region while aligning with ECOWAS industrial policy and the interests of young people.

The broader ambition is to use entrepreneurship as a practical vehicle for digital innovation, regional integration, employment creation and sustainable value-chain development.

Henry Emejuo, Director-General, Pan African Alliance for Small and Medium Enterprises, said the initiative should be viewed as a capacity-building platform rather than simply an awards scheme.

“ECOWAS is an important tool for economic integration. If you may remember, the core mandate of the ECOWAS Commission is to drive economic integration among member states,” Emejuo said.

He said the implementation would take place in three stages, beginning with the masterclass, followed by a pitching competition and culminating in the award ceremony.

Independent assessors will screen the more than 6,000 applications before selecting 60 startups for the masterclass. The field will subsequently be reduced to 20 finalists, who will pitch their businesses before judges.

“These 20 are going to pitch live at the event, at a fiscal event,” Emejuo said.

The 20 finalists will also enter a six-month accelerator programme after the award, with the organisers hoping the additional support will strengthen their businesses and improve their contribution to economic growth and employment.

The scale of the response is significant for a programme seeking to identify businesses capable of contributing to West Africa’s next phase of economic development.

The large pool of applicants also underlines the depth of entrepreneurial activity across the region, even as startups continue to contend with financing, market and regulatory constraints.

The second ECOWAS Startups Award is being organised by the ECOWAS Commission in partnership with the Pan African Alliance of Small and Medium Industries and the Investment Promotion Agencies of West African States.

The programme is scheduled for September 21 to 30, 2026, in Abuja.

A June 2026 partnership announcement by PAOSMI said the collaboration would support startup mobilisation and screening, pitching, investor engagement, post-award acceleration and regional market access.

The programme is expected to bring together about 300 participants, including the 60 selected startups, 12 technology hubs and accelerators, investors, policymakers, industry leaders and development partners.

The initiative builds on ECOWAS’s earlier effort to create a regional platform for startups.

The inaugural West African Startups Summit and awards programme took place in Niamey, Niger, in November 2021, where more than 60 startups presented their projects and competed for regional support and funding.

The success of that first edition prompted the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government to direct that the initiative be institutionalised as an annual programme.

Five years later, the second edition is taking a more structured approach, placing greater emphasis on what happens after the winners are announced.

For the entrepreneurs hoping to make the final 20, the opportunity therefore extends beyond the prospect of winning up to $30,000.

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It offers access to training, investors, business networks and a regional platform that could help promising ideas move from early promise to measurable impact.