AFI, along with the Bank of Tanzania (BOT), will host the AFI Financial Inclusion Strategy Peer Learning Working Group (FISPLG) meeting in Dar es Salaam on 26-27 April 2016.

The event is expected to bring more than 40 high-level financial inclusion policymakers together.

Dr. Natu Mwamba, Deputy Governor at the Bank of Tanzania is scheduled to deliver the welcome remarks, followed by speeches from Mr. Joseph Attah, Central Bank of Nigeria and FISPLG Co-Chair, and Mr. Robin Newnham, Head of Policy Analysis and Capacity Building at AFI. The opening day will also see peer reviews of national financial inclusion strategies from Zimbabwe and Solomon Islands.

On day two, participants will importantly discuss integrating policies for financial inclusion of women into national strategies and an AFI action plan for financial inclusion for women, among other topics.

FISPLG was established as a support mechanism for countries developing and implementing financial inclusion strategies. Many countries are increasingly interested in developing national financial inclusion strategies as frameworks to guide policy and regulatory reforms and to encourage the alignment of public and private sector stakeholders under a unified vision and shared goals.

The commitments that AFI members have made under the Maya Declaration and to the G20 through its Financial Inclusion Peer Learning Program reflect this global trend. At the 2012 AFI Global Policy Forum (GPF) 97 percent of participants polled considered a national financial inclusion strategy as an essential measure to accelerate the spread of financial inclusion. However, only 21 percent of AFI members reported having a strategy in place, reflecting some of the challenges faced by countries seeking to develop and implement a national financial inclusion strategy.

AFI members elected to formalize the FISPLG as an additional AFI working group with fixed membership, a charter and governance procedures following its first two successful meetings in Abuja, Nigeria, in October 2012 and in Bangkok, Thailand, in March 2013. At the third meeting in Kuala Lumpur in September 2013 the Group adopted a Charter and Work Plan. At the fourth meeting held in Nadi, Fiji, in March 2014 the group established four thematic and regional subgroups.