The Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI) has announced that it will receive a US$2mn contribution from the Indian Government to help uptake digital financial solutions and accelerate financial inclusion across the continent
According to ADFI, recent data has highlighted that nearly half of the continent’s adult population does not benefit from digital financial solutions. This problem is particularly pertinent with women, youth, farmers, small businesses and rural communities.
India’s collaboration with ADFI will enable the facility, housed and managed by the African Development Bank (AfDB), to learn from best practices and help scale-up initiatives to meet the needs of financially excluded and underserved people in Africa. India’s digital public infrastructure equitable model can offer shared learning opportunities across the digital finance ecosystem.
“India’s pioneering role in digital financial services, extending financial inclusion to remote rural areas and creating infrastructure for digitisation of financial services, opens a significant opportunity for India to work within the ADFI partnership to share learning and expertise on digital public infrastructure to further digital financial inclusion across the continent,” commented, Manisha Sinha, additional secretary in the department of economic affairs and principal ADFI governing council member for India.
Solomon Quaynor, AfDB vice president for the private sector, infrastructure and industrialization, added, “We welcome the Government of India’s support of the catalytic role ADFI has been playing in accelerating greater access and usage of digital financial solutions and financial inclusion across the continent. We look forward to working together to add learning from India’s digital public infrastructure success story within our expanding portfolio of digital financial solutions initiatives to enhance the impact on greater economic empowerment, resilience and growth across Africa.”
