AFI shares financial inclusion data expertise at G20 GPFI Meeting in China

AFI participated in a panel session focusing on financial inclusion data at the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) Meeting in Shanghai, China, on 2 March 2016.

The meeting highlighted how AFI, along with the leadership of the G20, have long been champions for the cause of financial inclusion. Since the 2010 Seoul Summit in the Republic of Korea, the G20 has worked with AFI in advocating for financial inclusion on a global stage.

Charles Marwa, Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist at AFI, highlighted the network’s bottom-up approach to data, saying that data should be defined and collected at the country level, meeting the policymaking requirements and priorities of countries, and that global comparison is a secondary objective.

“It is important that data enable countries to diagnose the state of financial inclusion, set national targets under the AFI Maya Declaration and track progress,” added Marwa.

The importance of the AFI Maya initiative was reiterated by Douglas Pearce, Global Lead for Financial Inclusion at the World Bank, who stated: “AFI’s Maya Declaration is the single biggest catalyst for the advancement of financial inclusion.”

Marwa also noted that AFI promotes a culture of evidence-based and data-driven policymaking, and believes capacity and tools to generate high quality data should be strengthened at the country level as this ensures relevance, ownership and sustainability of efforts.

It was highlighted to the audience that, in line with this belief, AFI provides a working group—the Financial Inclusion Data Working Group (FIDWG)—for peer learning, to improve knowledge and capacity in data and measurement, and offers members formal training courses for policymakers in financial inclusion data and measurement.

AFI has also developed a centralized online data portal that will:

• Allow standardized and country-specific indicators for financial inclusion measurement, and;
• Provide tools for analysis and comparison with peers.

“Efforts should be focused at the national level to build the capacity, systems and infrastructure required to sustainably obtain and use high quality data for financial inclusion policymaking,” Marwa stated in his concluding remarks.