EBID intervenes through long, medium, and short-term loans, equity participation, lines of credit, refinancing, financial engineering operations, and related services.
EBID started operations in 1999 as a holding company with two specialised subsidiaries: In 2006, the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government agreed to reorganise the EBID Group into one unified entity with two windows: one for promoting the private sector and the other, for developing the public sector in order to extend the services of the Bank to a wider range of stakeholders involved in sustainable economic development activities and programmes at national and regional levels.
The mission of EBID is to contribute towards creating the conditions capable of enhancing the emergence of an economically strong, industrialised and prosperous West Africa that is perfectly integrated both internally, and in the global economic system in order to benefit from and take advantage of the opportunities and prospects offered by globalisation.
Operational activities of EBID are intended to lay the foundation for the sustainable development of Member States of the Community through the financing of regional and national (public and private) projects.
EBID partnered with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit[15] and International Fertilizer Development Center[16] in 2019 and 2020 respectively to achieve common goals.