Central Bank of Nigeria and Undersecretariat of Treasury, Turkey elected Co-Chairs

AFI and Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) co-hosted the sixth Financial Inclusion Strategy Peer Learning Group (FISPLG) Meeting at AFI’s Sasana Kijang headquarters on 9-11 June 2015 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The meeting brought together policymakers from the group’s 45 member institutions in order to help facilitate peer learning on the different approaches to strategy development and implementation across the AFI Network. Marina Kahar, Director of Development Finance and Enterprise at BNM, Cheikh Amadou Bamba Fall, FISPLG Co-Chair and representative from the Ministry of Finance and Economy of Senegal, and Alfred Hannig, Executive Director at AFI, delivered the meeting’s opening remarks.

“FISPL is playing a critical role in the global advancement of financial inclusion. It is at the core of this important movement,” said Mr. Hannig. “We are now witnessing the evidence strongly indicating countries with national financial inclusion strategies—particularly with measurable targets included in their Maya Declaration Commitments—are considerably outperforming their peers.”

During the working group meeting, participants offered updates on significant developments in implementing their financial inclusion strategies over the previous 12 months. FISPLG confirmed the work plans of its three subgroups which focus on: development of financial inclusion strategy toolkits; case studies on national leadership and coordination; and principles for effective public-private engagement. Additionally, representatives from both Peru and the Philippines presented their draft national financial inclusion strategies for review by peers before finalization and launch of the national strategies is scheduled for July of this year.

Also noteworthy were the country case studies presented by Nigeria and Tanzania that covered monitoring and evaluation frameworks for national financial inclusion strategies. The meeting additionally featured a field visit to Malaysia’s Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU) where participants received a briefing on the country’s Government Transformation Program. The FISPLG meeting was joined by expert speakers from the World Bank Group and Visa.

The meeting concluded with FISPLG members expressing gratitude to Mr. Cheikh Amadou Bamba Fall and Mr. Noor Ahmed of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) for completing their two-year terms as FISPLG co-chairs, and finally electing Mr. Mehmet Alper Batur of the Undersecretariat of Treasury of Turkey and Mr. Joseph Attah of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as new co-chairs.

FISPLG will reconvene for its seventh meeting at the 2015 Global Policy Forum (GPF) in Maputo, Mozambique, on 1-4 September.