Dear colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the first session of the 2020 IGF virtual working group meetings. I am pleased to count more than 30 Working Group members in this session today. This speaks much about the members’ commitment despite the challenging circumstances we are facing because of COVID-19. Please allow me to congratulate and welcome all IGF Working Group members to this first IGF Working Group Webinar.

I would like to also take this opportunity thank all members present today for your leadership, commitment and passion that you have put together to ensure that the Working Group remains as an essential platform for policy lessons, peer learning and best practices for the network despite the global emergency that has affected about 200 countries and territories. The global emergency is again a reminder of how important your work is to ensure our poor populations build resilience to shock. You are required more than ever before to provide policy leadership in developing sustainable policies. Such as pay as you go solar, micro-insurance and financing for sustainable agriculture.

Inclusive Green Finance is a new and evolving policy area pioneered by AFI member institutions with the objective of implementing policies, regulations and national strategies to mitigate or build resilience to climate change. As we hear and see – climate change is not happening in the future. Climate change is here today, and most of us already feel the effects. Taking effective action against the dramatic impact of climate change is in everyone’s interest and as AFI, we are part of the growing momentum for green finance globally.  Developing and emerging countries are not only affected by the impact of climate change but we are part of the problem through engaging in practices and businesses that harm the environment. This calls for policies that will provide for sustainable alternatives. This working group is therefore unique and comes with a big potential impact.

Leveraging  the Sharm El Sheikh Accord on Financial Inclusion, Climate Change and Green Finance  endorsed by an overwhelming 94% of the AFI membership and the Nadi Action Agenda,  AFI in 2019 launched the 4Ps framework for Inclusive Green Finance (provision, promotion, protection and prevention) and also  established  the Inclusive Green Finance Working Group (IGFWG) during the AFI Global Policy Forum in Kigali, Rwanda. The AFI Management Unit is happy and excited to see how fast this WG continues to grow which initially started with 20 members and has since then doubled to 43 members from 41 countries.

As all of you are aware, AFI is progressing on its Phase III Strategy journey which focuses on two main areas: policy guidance and in-country implementation for its members. For 2020, AFI MU looks forward to offer more in-country implementation (ICI) support related to Inclusive Green Finance and to dive into providing more targeted regulatory guidance in this area.

The purpose of the IGFWG Webinar series is to better understand the impact of climate change particularly in affecting those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. As you are aware Research shows that climate change might push an additional 100 million people into poverty by 2030 (WB) and the people to be disproportionately affected are most likely to be women and youth. We are here as financial regulators and carefully selected experts to discuss how this can be mitigated and find common solutions.

Finally, I wish to thank everyone again for their participation and to AFI team for working hard in organising the webinar. I wish you all fruitful deliberations.

Stay safe and social distance.