Senior Officials from the Ministry of Emergency Management and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning

Delegates from the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI)

UNHCR Representative

UNCDF Program Coordinator

Delegates from NGOs, Financial Service Providers, umbrella organizations,

Ladies and Gentlemen

Good Morning!

Thank you for being here with us today.

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all of you who generously made time to participate in this workshop.

The theme for the workshop is advancing financial inclusion for forcibly displaced persons in Rwanda. FDPs are among the most vulnerable groups. They have special needs and should be given special attention while formulating national strategies and putting in place legal and regulatory framework for financial inclusion.

The last Finscope Survey (2020) revealed that 93% of adult people in Rwanda are financially included and 77% are formally included. However, this survey does not give details about financial inclusion for forcibly displaced persons.

This is a big challenge to policy makers and financial service providers since in our journey of reaching 100% of adult people financially included, we have to be deliberate about leaving no one behind.

Realizing this challenge, in partnership with AFI and UNCDF, BNR is undertaking a study on “financial inclusion of forcibly displaced people” with the aim of understanding the baseline, the financial needs of refugees, as well their specific financial inclusion challenges.

The findings of this study and this consultative workshop will inform policy makers and different stakeholders on the level of financial inclusion for FDPs and guide them on possible interventions to advance financial inclusion.

In this workshop, we expect you to share initiatives around FDPs financial inclusion and challenges you might be facing in the implementation. The information will be quite useful to inform recommendations and action plan for advancing financial inclusion for FDPs.

Allow me to thank AFI for the partnership in conducting the study on FDPs financial inclusion. Thanks AFI team for being part of the workshop.

Furthermore, I would like to appreciate MINEMA and UNHCR for their support on the study being conducted and supporting FDPs in Rwanda.

I thank UNCDF and all the implementing partners for the ongoing projects to advance financial inclusion for FDPs.

I am quite sure there are different initiatives that you are implementing or are intending to implement in the future. Let us join hands and advance financial inclusion for forcibly displaced persons in Rwanda. Together we will change lives of FDPs.

I believe you will contribute a lot in this study and I hope that results will be useful to develop products tailored to needs of FDPs and put in place policies that support this segment.

Thank you once again for taking your time to join us today and I hereby, solemnly open the Workshop on Advancing Financial Inclusion of Forcibly Displaced People.

I wish you fruitful discussions.