DEVELOPMENT
A NEW COOPERATION
MODEL COULD HOLD
THE KEY TO FINANCIAL
INCLUSION UNDER
THE SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT GOALS
ALFRED HANNIG
Executive Director
of the Alliance for
Financial Inclusion
76
The United Nations Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) were
unveiled to the world in 2015, setting
the stage for the global development
agenda for the next 15 years. Over the
last decade, much has been learned
about how best to meet development
targets and the kinds of strategies,
goals and issues that have the biggest
impact. Navigating the SDGs roadmap
laid out in the Addis Ababa Action
Agenda, it is easy to see how the
lessons of the last decade are being
applied. One of these lessons is that
fi nancial inclusion is one of the fastest
and most eff ective routes to poverty
alleviation and the provision of safe
and sustainable fi nancial services for
the unbanked.
Through the SDGs and the Addis
Ababa Action Agenda, the international
community has made a bold and
unifi ed statement on the importance
of fi nancial inclusion to inclusive and
sustainable development. The Action
Agenda includes a dedicated fi nancial
inclusion initiative, a welcome sign of
high-level understanding that fi nancial
inclusion is connected to a broad range
of policy areas: economic stability, social
inclusion, green fi nance, gender equality,
sustainability, health, education and much
more. In fact, this perception of fi nancial
inclusion has been evolving for some
time, moving slowly but steadily from an
interesting fringe subject on the sidelines
of global debate into mainstream
economic and social policy agendas.
But recognition alone is not enough
to confront the monumental task
of bringing fi nancial services to the
world’s 2 billion unbanked. What is
needed now is investment in a proven
platform that captures our collective
global experience and allows every
nation to tap into this wealth of
knowledge and use it to build and tailor
their own policy solutions. Fortunately,
we are not starting from scratch.
AFI’s proven cooperation model
The Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI)
was founded on the idea that a global
knowledge exchange platform was key
to expanding and improving fi nancial
inclusion policy. Over the last eight
years, the AFI network supported by
its funders has invested deeply in this
platform, and data shows the model is
delivering tangible results while saving
time and money. AFI’s members are
actively engaged in advancing fi nancial