This week, 88 participants from 44 countries are in Arusha, Tanzania, attending meetings of AFI’s SME Finance (SMEF) and Global Standards Proportionality (GSP) Working Groups. The event, co-hosted with Bank of Tanzania, has a strong focus on gender, explore how gender-responsive approaches and proportional regulatory frameworks can align to support women’s financial inclusion.
“The mandates of the two Working Groups convening here today could not be timelier,” said Bank of Tanzania Deputy Governor, Ms. Sauda Kassim Msemo. “Around the world, regulators are grappling with a fundamental tension: how do we apply global regulatory standards that were designed for large, sophisticated financial systems, to markets where the majority of economic activity is informal, where MSMEs struggle to access credit, and where innovation is outpacing regulatory frameworks?”
“Gender is not a side conversation in this week’s agenda, but rather a core lens through which we are examining whether our policies are not only sound in design, but effective in practice,” said AFI Director of Policy Programs and Implementation, Dr Eliki Boletawa. “This reflects the belief across our network that when policies are designed and implemented with care and intention, inclusion, stability, and integrity are not competing objectives, but mutually reinforce each other.”
You can learn more about the SMEF and GSP Working Groups on their websites: