Denarau Action Plan: Gender and Women’s Financial Inclusion

Women are disproportionately excluded from formal financial services with more than a billion lacking a bank account. Despite significant progress at the national level, the gender gap in account ownership has remained stuck at 9 percent across developing countries since 2011. In some regions, this figure is far higher.

Seeking to narrow this divide, AFI members committed to the Denarau Action Plan, which aims to boost women’s access to quality and affordable financial services globally. The 10-point plan emphasizes the importance of measuring and evaluating progress and fosters strong partnerships and collaboration with financial service providers to drive private sector leadership. Among its commitments, members aim to halve the financial inclusion gender gap across their jurisdictions by 2021.

AFI’s work in gender and women’s financial inclusion builds the case for sex disaggregated data usage and gender considerations for national financial inclusion strategies, while also sharing examples of best practices that have already been implemented to inspire action and provide insights for others.

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