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The African Union is a continental entity that embodies Africa’s collective aspirations for an integrated, peaceful, and prosperous Africa, powered by and for its people, and increasingly playing an influential role on the global scene. I am inspired that minding inclusivity you are also ensuring peace, security, progress, and growth. The theme of this Forum, “Innovation for an Inclusive World,” therefore, resonates deeply with the African Union’s commitment to ensuring that every African, regardless of gender, age, or background, benefits from the continent’s growth.
The AU’s role, particularly through its Agenda 2063, is to harness innovation as a tool for wealth creation, smart policies and regulations, inclusive access to life-changing services, collective learning through data systems, and global advocacy thereby ensuring that no one is left behind in our pursuit of prosperity.
I will share with you five stories about Africa, the African Union, and my own work as I ponder what we as a collective could do to foster innovation for an inclusive world.
The Unicorn Story or Innovation for Wealth Creation
First is a story celebrating our Unicorns, mostly among the youth, driving wealth creation and financial inclusion through innovation. Africa has always been a continent of boundless potential, rich in resources, creativity, and the unyielding resilience of its people.
Across the continent, for instance, we are witnessing the rise of agritech startups that are helping farmers increase their yields and fintech solutions that are simplifying commerce for small businesses. There are virtually startups in every sector of life: health, climate, water, education, mining, Artificial Intelligence (AI), name it. Africa is brimming with entrepreneurial activity, much of it fueled by technological advancements.
We look up to these unicorns to keep innovating for alternative contents, such as visuals, touch, or voice content expressed in vernacular languages, to match the needs of the last-mile communities mainly the rural, the women, the youth, people living with disabilities, internally displaced people, and refugees, most of whom operate in informal sector and cannot read and write.
Initiatives such as Energize Africa, a programme of the AUDA-NEPAD, working collaboratively with Timbuktoo, a Startups initiative of the UNDP in Africa, have been supporting innovation hubs and ensuring our youth’s talent retained, protected, and beneficiated on the continent as they contribute to offering solutions for a better world. Innovation hubs serve as incubators and accelerators for these young entrepreneurs, providing them with de-risking tools that guarantee their own access to financial services, thus deepening financial inclusion.
The AfCFTA Story or Innovation in Policymaking and Regulation
This brings me to the second story, namely the Africa Continental Free Trade Area- AfCFTA, which in itself is an innovation in policymaking and regulation. At the continental level, the AfCFTA is a game-changer. It facilitates the opening of new markets, encourages cross-border innovation, and creates opportunities for Africa’s entrepreneurs.
Coupled with the digital transformation sweeping across the continent, AfCFTA is laying the groundwork for inclusive economic growth and sustainable development that benefits all, regardless of gender, location, or background. I argue that AfCFTA is an innovation because through the Women and Youth in Trade Protocol – the first of its kind globally, it took care of mandating the rights of women and youth including those in the informal sector to ensure none is left behind.
In addition, the AfCFTA Hub, a digital public infrastructure with emphasis on micro, small and medium scale enterprises, which are mostly ran by women, in particular young women, aims to enable automation for border management functions and trade facilitation services through accelerated regulatory integration to eliminate technical barriers to trade. This not only will level the playing ground but also, will create a track record for small businesses, therefore removing a source of vulnerability for women and youth especially who are unable to build credit due to a lack of formal business status; this is innovation.
The WYFEI Story or Innovation in Partnerships for Women and Youth
I now move to the third story, my personal story, which is one of innovating around solutions to include women and youth. Like in most developing countries, majority of African women and youth live in rural areas. They are either unemployed, under-employed or vulnerably (self)- employed. The youth entering the job market each year by far outnumber formal jobs created annually. This situation perpetuates youth unemployment and gender inequalities in employment. I learned in El – Salvador the unemployment rate is 5%; in some other places the rate is far higher and youth face roughly double the unemployment rate of adults, with significant variation by countries.
Women and youth financial and economic exclusion poses a significant threat to the sustainable development of Africa and threatens to broaden and further entrench socioeconomic challenges including poverty and inequality thereby delaying the attainment of the SDGs.
In Africa, like in many developing countries, we still have a significant portion of the population facing connectivity shortages due to limited access to electricity and the internet as well as high data costs. The lack of awareness and understanding of digital financial services is hindering adoption while digital taxes that add additional costs associated with digital transactions are discouraging it. We still face redundancy barriers in the form of obstacles related to outdated infrastructure and inefficient processes.
The African Union Commission is actively implementing its 2020-2030 Digital Transformation Strategy, which aims to achieve universal access to digital financial services for all, including micro, small, and medium enterprises across Africa. We are collaborating with partners and African central banks to advocate for, and develop policies and harmonized regulatory frameworks that support, inclusive digital financial platforms.
The African Union Commission is committed to fostering these alliances through initiatives such as Smart Africa, which aims to create a single digital market across the continent and build the infrastructure necessary to support innovation at scale.
In line with this, the Digital Transformation Strategy will play a key role in driving innovative initiatives critical to realizing the goals of the African Union 2020-2030 Decade of Women’s Financial and Economic Inclusion, and WYFEI 2030- its implementation framework.
Since 2022, I have envisioned and championed this initiative called Women and Youth Financial and Economic Inclusion – WYFEI 2030 aimed to dismantle key systemic barriers that perpetuate poverty, deprivation, and social injustice among women and youth in Africa. Through public-private partnerships, together with WYFEI stakeholders we are building resilient continental ecosystems that foster impactful multi-level actions to improve women and youth financial and economic inclusion and contribute to unlocking $100 Billion USD for at least 10 million women and youth by 2030.
The Big Data Story or Innovation in Tracking Progress on Inclusion
The imperative of accountability towards these targets brings me to the fourth story, one of an effort to harness data and collaborations to monitor progress on digital inclusion.
Our commitment to transparency and responsibility is unwavering as we account to women, youth, MSMEs, and people with disabilities on the impact our actions are having on their wellbeing.
In line with its Strategy on Harmonisation of Statistics in Africa, the African Union through STATAFRIC, the African Institute for Remittances, and PanStat initiative, is collaborating with AFI’s Financial Inclusion Strategy Peer Learning Group to onboard countries on a peer learning review with 14 countries already signed up. In the same way, we are participating in UN Regional Hub for Big Data and Data Science Steering Committee to promote the use of alternative sources in the field of official statistics.
The AU-goes-global Story or Innovations in the Multilateral System
Last, but not least, on my five-point story list, is the role that AU is playing as a member of the G20 (G21). You may know that the African Union is a full member of the G20 since last year 2023. As such, we are actively advocating for innovative “financial inclusion” of African and other developing countries, in terms of multilateral financial architecture reforms that are needed to ensure additional and at-scale resources that can save developing countries from making hard choices between catering for the well-being of their citizens and repaying debts, for instance.
We are advocating for more climate finance, including fair rules of the game in the carbon market, taxation regimes, sovereign credit rating, to name some.
We believe that countries and institutions in the AFI network can gain more in de-risked financing and investment instruments for the private sector, including SMEs, to undertake projects that are going to create wealth and render financial inclusion meaningful.
Our advocacy has gained momentum with the IMF decision in May 2024 allowing countries to channel Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) through the African Development Bank alongside another Multilateral Development Bank. More should and certainly will come. Within the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion, for instance, we will continue to advocate for inclusive SMEs financing, and the Last Mile and Quality Inclusion through Digital Infrastructure. This 2024 GPF forum will provide concrete steps to take in areas that matter most to achieve an inclusive world.
As I conclude, let me emphasize that innovation is not a luxury; it is a necessity. It is the bridge between our present challenges and a future of shared prosperity. Innovation is not just about creating wealth; it is about ensuring that every person has a fair chance to contribute to and benefit from the growth we strive for.
As we leave this forum, let us commit to fostering innovation that prioritizes inclusion. Let us champion policies that open doors for the marginalized and unlock the potential of our youth. Let us invest in technologies that heal, empower, and uplift communities across Africa and around the world.
I invite the AFI and its partners to join hands with the African Union to entrench innovations that will promote inclusion and provide solutions to a diverse range of problems still standing in the way of a more equitable and accessible society for all.
I pledge my personal unwavering support and active contribution to honor the agency and dignity of the vulnerable and underprivileged communities, mainly women and youth, through financial inclusion innovations. This, for me, is a noble cause and a personal calling.
© Alliance for Financial Inclusion 2009-2024
