On 22 July, policymakers and international leaders from across the globe met in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire to discuss the connections between financial inclusion policy and women in Africa.

The meeting, held under the theme of “Bridging the Gap: Financial Inclusion Policy Solutions for Women in Africa” was organized by AFI, with funding support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Participants in the conference included AFI member institutions and private sector representatives, as well as leaders from international organizations, representing a wide range of views and expertise.

In recognition of the increasing number of activities related to financial inclusion and women from AFI members, the meeting looked at the potential role of financial regulators in diminishing the financial inclusion gender gap and sought to find policy interventions that have contributed to this end. Prior to the meeting, AFI and Women’s World Banking (WWB) released a draft discussion paper, “Policy Framework to Support Women’s Banking – Financial Inclusion” which examined policy solutions from across the AFI Network and how their specific attention to women had impacted the success of these policies.

AFI Executive Director Alfred Hannig and BCEAO Governor Kone Tiemoko Meyliet made the event’s opening remarks. Hannig noted the importance of creating a common understanding of the role regulators can play to support women and financial inclusion, while Governor Kone stressed the financial inclusion of women must become a priority for anyone working in economic development.

Axel de Ville, UN Women Regional Deputy Director for West and Central Africa, delivered the meeting’s keynote address. de Ville stressed that while the importance of financial inclusion and women is widely recognized, the participation of women in the formal economy is still lagging. de Ville emphasized three primary financial inclusion challenges; access, legal restrictions, and low financial literacy.

During the opening panel, “What’s at Stake, What are the Barriers and What is to be Done”, moderated by Hannig, panelists discussed the challenges and the efforts currently being undertaken to ensure financial inclusion policy is responsive to the specific needs of women. Panelists included Diane Jocelyn Bizimana, Banque de la Republique du Burundi, Governor Ernesto Gove, Banco de Mozambique, Axel de Ville, UN Women and Celina Kawas, Woman’s World Banking. Hannig, set the stage for the discussion noting that there had been significant inroads made on finance inclusion access, but that these gains had not managed to close the gap women face. The discussion highlighted the importance of physical distance, particularly in rural settings where there is a lack of access point throughout large areas. The need to develop mechanisms for including the views and opinions of women was noted as an essential first step of any planning process as was the value that gender disaggregated data could bring to the field. The panelists also discussed the need for visible leadership from regulators and the importance of being strong advocates for women and financial inclusion. The value of women in financial inclusion was stressed throughout the session, as summarized clearly by Kawas, “Not properly taking into account 50 percent of the population cannot help but have a negative impact on the local and global economy.”

The second session, entitled “Private Sector Initiatives to Reach Woman at Scale”, was moderated by Marcelina Gaoses, New Faces New Voices, with a panel made up of Claire Scharwatt, GSMA, Doreen Ratemo, Chase Bank Kenya, Raadhika Sihin, Mastercard and Rebecca Ruf, Global Banking Alliance for Women. In this session Ruf raised several private sector myths in regard to women and finance access. These myths included the idea the women and men are the same without need for specialized products, feminizing products as a solution to bringing more women into the formal financial sector and the view that there is no business case to support specific financial services for women. The panelists instead agreed that there is in fact a strong business case for gender specific products and that an investment in reaching out to women can be profitable was well as good social policy. While effective outreach efforts can be as simple as ensuring women are among those hired as banking agents, the panelists agreed an investment in comprehensive data on how women access and use financial products would enable better product designs and more effective services.

The session “Policy Responses in Addressing Consumer Level Barriers”, moderated by Professor Njuguna Ndung’u, saw a panel made up of Armenuhi Mkrtchyan, Central Bank of Armenia, Marie-Jose Ilunga, Central Bank of Congo, Swapan Ray, Bangladesh Bank, and John Karamuka, Central Bank of Rwanda. This session served to highlight the impact of local conditions and the importance of ensuring that the types of services provided are specific to the needs of each market. In Armenia for example, a mobile phone is often a family phone, meaning that a personal mobile banking service is often accessible by everyone in that family. Given the high value women place on confidentiality, this can make mobile financial services much less attractive to women in the country. The role of literacy and education was seen as extremely important and caution was raised about the fine line between undertaking specific efforts to support women, and the danger of appearing to put limits on women as a result.

In the final session, “Market Infrastructure and Enabling Regulatory Environment”, CGAP’s Mayada El-Zoghbi moderated a panel which included Governor Benno Ndulu, Bank of Tanzania, Tukiya Kankasa-Mabula, Bank of Zambia, Temitope Akin-Fadeyi, Central Bank of Nigeria and Rebeca Mann from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The panelists first acknowledged that the existence of the gender gap is not new and pointed out that the fact it still exists means that new approaches are needed. Three areas were raised as possible new avenues, including better corporation with the private sector, making on-boarding into the banking sector easier and gender specific literacy and education programs. The importance of gender and financial inclusion to central banks and regulators was seen as obvious, as stated by Akin-Fadeyi: “Women and financial inclusion is not a women’s issue, it is a development issue. It impacts us all.”

Professor Ndung’u provided a summary of main takeaways for AFI, dividing these into; current terrain, possible solutions, role of regulators, national strategies and stakeholder engagement. Special emphasis was placed on the potential role of AFI’s Maya Declaration commitments to use as a way to highlight gender and financial inclusion. He also noted the cross cutting expertise within AFI’s working groups that could be brought to bear on the development of possible solutions.

In his concluding remarks, Hannig, emphasized African members are making significant efforts in bridging the gender gap. “Today’s meetings have clearly demonstrated policymakers recognize the challenges created by the gender gap and are working to close it.” Given the complexity of the barriers that have been identified as hindering women in financial inclusion, Hannig recommended AFI members focus on the barriers that fall into the mandate of the regulator. Other important barriers outside the regulators remit, such as social norms, should be addressed by governments in cooperation with relevant stakeholders.

The full AFI Network will take up this issue again at the 2015 AFI Global Policy Forum (GPF) in Maputo, Mozambique in 1-4 September 2015.