Gates Foundation helps form new global alliance for financial inclusion

By Naagesh, N.

Microfinance Focus, Sept. 14, 2009: With a $35 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor initiative, the global Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), a coalition of developing countries committed to financial inclusion, was launched in Nairobi, Kenya on Monday, amid nearly 100 central bankers and other policymakers.

An estimated 2.5 billion people or half the world’s adult population do not have access to savings accounts and other financial services. Based in Bangkok, Thailand, AFI is managed on behalf of its members by the German development organization Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH with the grant from the Gates Foundation.
This grant is part of the Gates Foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor initiative, which is working with a wide range of public and private partners to harness technology and innovation to make safe places to save and other financial services accessible to poor people in the developing world.
“The demand for financial services – especially savings – is enormous in the developing world,” said Bob Christen, director of Financial Services for the Poor at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “AFI will help foster the spread of new and innovative efforts to deliver these services to the doorsteps of the poor so they can manage life’s risks and take advantage of life’s opportunities.”
AFI’s global network will enable developing countries to share knowledge so they can more effectively develop and implement policies designed to expand access to financial services.
“The unique aspect of AFI is that it puts us members in the driver’s seat to identify and create solutions to increase the availability and choices of financial services in our own countries,” said Tarisa Watanagase, governor of the Bank of Thailand and AFI member. “Since we understand our countries’ circumstances better than outside organizations, AFI creates an exceptional forum for us to share policies that work and learn from other policymakers about solutions that work for them.”
Marking the coalition’s first-annual conference, AFI members gathered in Nairobi for the Global Policy Forum, a three-day meeting. AFI members have chosen to focus on six policy areas to increase financial inclusion for their respective countries: agent banking, diversification of financial products and providers, state bank reforms, financial identity, consumer protection and mobile phone banking.

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