Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Building job-ready talent, modern learning systems, and innovation capability in Ethiopia’s financial sector.
The Skilled Workforce for Innovation and Financial Sector Transformation (SWIFT)
is a four-year program (2025 - 2029) designed by the National Bank of Ethiopia in
partnership with Mastercard Foundation.
SWIFT equips young finance professionals and new graduates, especially women,
with financial and workplace skills to lead and support Ethiopia's rapidly changing
financial sector.
Anchored in the National Bank of Ethiopia's Ethiopian Academy of Finance (EAF) strategy,
the program strengthens the Academy's institutional and operational capacity.
SWIFT takes a focused and sustainable approach grounded in partnership. We combine technical assistance, capacity building, knowledge exchange, and evidence-based analysis to support reform over time. SWIFT runs five targeted interventions addressing root causes.
Expand access to market-relevant financial-sector learning for young people, with a strong focus on women, through a combination of in-person, hybrid and online learning to be delivered through six sectoral academies at the National Bank of Ethiopia’s Ethiopian Academy of Finance, complemented by specialized/thematic training, career orientation and trainer development.
Lead ecosystem-based applied research to identify pressing workforce and financial product and service challenges, bringing together financial institutions, academia, and research and development partners to make the Ethiopia Academy of Finance a center for developing, testing, and promoting practical solutions that inform industry practice, policy, and training.
Support EAF in designing, developing, and implementing a modern, scalable digital learning ecosystem that delivers high-quality, competency-based financial training digital platform prioritizing the establishment of the LMS core backbone and foundational digital learning capabilities including remote and hybrid learning, while enabling progressive expansion of advanced analytics, AI-enabled functionalities, workforce linkage, and broader ecosystem integrations over the course of the Program.
As the only entity dedicated to the empowerment of women finance professioinals, the SWIFT Program collaborates with the Network of Ethiopia’s Women in Finance (NEWFin) – an initiatitive of the National Bank of Ethiopia – to support its Young Women Professionals’ Development Program (YWPDP), networking and communication activities.
Cross-cutting support to strengthen the organizational effectiveness of the Ethiopian Academy of Finance including investments on training IT equipment, communications, monitoring and evaluation systems, as well as technical support to mainstream gender, safeguarding and environmental advisory.
SWIFT Programs
One of the main outputs of the SWIFT Program is a Knowledge Hub designed to keep learning closely connected to real-world change in Ethiopia’s finance sector.
Working with financial institutions, academia, and research and development partners, the hub turns evidence into practical insights and continuously updates training content across all SWIFT academies.
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