CGAP, State Dept and CARE Offer Perspectives on Financial Inclusion

Last night, the panel of speakers at USAID’s Microfinance Learning and Innovations After Hours Seminar #46 offered three important perspectives on financial inclusion. Oya Pinar Ardic of CGAP shared different perspectives from thought leaders on the relationship between access to finance and economic growth. Despite the debate, CGAP offers a wealth of evidence that better functioning financial systems lead to fewer external financing constraints for firms and industries, a prerequisite to growth. Caroline Mauldin from the Office of the Undersecretary for Democracy and Global Affairs at the State Department spoke about the roles that government (USG and others) can play in promoting financial inclusion. Lauren Hendricks, who leads CARE’s Access Africa initiative, rounded off the event with a practitioner perspective on how to promote financial inclusion and where CARE’s strategy is headed. Caroline and Lauren were both fresh off a plane from the Global Savings Forum convened by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and shared many of the new ideas and issues discussed at the forum.

If you missed the event, you can get a pretty good sense of the topics discussed by following the conversation on Twitter with #MLevents. Here are a few highlights tweeted by audience members during the seminar:

@Microlinks: Oya Pinar Ardic: Financial dev occurs when mkts, instruments & institutes reduce/eliminate info asymms & costs & ease enforcement #MLevents

@jasonmwolfe: Other economists say finance exerts a disproportionately large & positive impact on the poor -- reducing income inequality #mlevents

@Microlinks: Oya Pinar Ardic: @CGAP "Financial Access 2010" available - tons of data on #financial inclusion http://bit.ly/aJm0KZ #MLevents #microfinance

@jasonmwolfe: Nice messages from Caroline Mauldin: governments CAN play a supportive & catalytic role, we don't have to always be afraid if them #mlevents

@Microlinks: @StateDept has 3 buckets: ed, coordination, elevation. Educate diplomats on FS, growing coord in USG, elevate w bully pulpit #MLevents

@JessicaZ_mL: Hendricks' wishlist 2 boost fin inclusion: formal ID systms, mr resources 2 Africa, mobile banking inovations & comittment 2 women #MLevents

@jasonmwolfe: Lauren Hendricks: savings is fundamentally different game than microcredit requiring proactive engagement w/ govt, banks, telcos #mlevents

@JessicaZ_mL: Mauldin: you don't need to give the poor $$; they have it. Fin inclusion is about helping them get more out of what they have. #MLevents

@jasonmwolfe: Thrilled to hear that USAID/Iraq tuned in to the After Hours webinar! It's like 1am in Baghdad! #mlevents