GPF 2011 ends successfully with the signing of the Maya Declaration on Financial Inclusion

Posted: October 6th, 2011  |   viewed: (1,030)  |   Comments: ( 0 )  |  Topic: Blog Post, Regulation  |   Region: Global

Share: By Camilo Tellez

The Global Policy Forum (GPF) 2011–held in Rivera Maya, Mexico–ended successfully with the signing of the Maya Declaration on Financial Inclusion. Members of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion reaffirmed the urgency and importance of financial inclusion and announced a framework for their individual domestic and collective AFI network commitment for bringing more of the world’s poor into the formal financial sector. The Maya Declaration emerged after a lengthy consultation process among AFI members, steering committee, and after three days of deliberations at the GPF.

In the Declaration, members recognize the key role that financial inclusion policy plays in bringing stability and integrity, its role in fighting poverty, and its essential contribution toward inclusive economic growth in developing and emerging countries. The Declaration reaffirms the importance of peer-to-peer knowledge exchange and learning among financial regulators and policymakers to help develop and implement innovative and relevant policy solutions.

Several countries used the forum to announce new initiatives to expand their population’s access to financial services:

• Brazil agreed to launch a National Partnership for Financial Inclusion in November.
• Peru pledged to enact a new law regulating electronic money within the next year.
• Mexico committed to establish banking agents or branches in every municipality in the country by 2014.
• Tanzania pledged to raise its financial access level to 50% of its population by 2015 through mobile banking and other initiatives.
• Nigeria said it would work to reduce its unbanked by 50% by 2020.
• Malawi will introduce agent banking in 2012.
• Zambia said it would raise financial inclusion to 50% within two years.
• Rwanda set a target of 80% by 2017.

Other members making commitments included members from Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Burundi, Pakistan, Fiji and the Philippines.

AFI will provide the necessary support to its members in achieving their commitments and will continue to monitor development. The progress review will be showcased at the 2012 GPF in South Africa.