Regional Conference: Finance for All: Promoting Financial Inclusion in Central Africa

There has been a growing realization that access to financial services can play a critical role in reducing poverty, inequality, and supporting inclusive development. However, only about half of the world population has access to financial services, and that access is unequally spread across regions, countries, income levels and gender. Access is comparatively low in most of central Africa. This session will look at the nexus of access to finance, growth and poverty reduction and the state of financial inclusion in the ECCAS region.

This session will focus on identifying barriers to financial services for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) and the challenge of retail banking. It will discuss the reforms needed to help reduce risks and promote a better lending climate.

This session will focus on the role of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and other innovative financial services as well as the management of supervisory risks stemming from nontraditional financial actors. Although MFIs and mobile banking services still represent only a fraction of the total financial offer, they are growing rapidly – therefore presenting supervision challenges. This session will present how an inadequate supervision can lead to risks for the consumers. It will also examine how to mitigate those risks and develop the sector safely.

Mahamat Abbas Tolli became the COBAC Secretary General in 2012. He has held senior official positions in Chadian government including Minister of finance and minister of infrastructure and equipment. Prior to this, he has occupied various other positions of which director of the civil cabinet of the presidency of the Republic, director of custom department, and Secretary General of the Central Bank of African States (BEAC). Mr Abbas holds a Bachelor BA in Entrepreneurship from University of Quebec and he is graduated from the National School of Administration Paris.

This session will discuss the experiences of countries that have successfully implemented policies for expanding access to financial services in recent years. It will convey the lessons of those experiences, and spell out some of the options and pitfalls for widening financial access. The presenters and panelists will discuss the scope for promoting nontraditional financial services, the role of MFIs and of new technologies, and review the way some countries have successfully reached out to the underbanked.

Possible case studies: Rwanda, Kenya, Bangladesh.

Lucas Abaga Nchama, Lucas Abaga Nchama has been Governor of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) since July 2008. He previously held high-level government positions in his country, including Director-General of Economy, Trade and Business Promotion, and Secretary-General of the Ministry of Finance and Budget. He began his career at the National Directorate of the BEAC in Malabo and at the Bata branch. His responsibilities in government positions have allowed him to carry out other functions, including executive director of the BEAC, member of the Interstate Committee of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC), alternate executive director of the African Development Bank, and interim governor for the annual meetings of the IMF. A national of Equatorial Guinea, Mr. Abaga Nchama obtained a postgraduate diploma (DEA) in Banking, Money and Finance from the University of Lyon II, France, in 1995.

General round table with Ministers and Governors of ECCAS.

Anne-Marie Gulde-Wolf, a German National, is now Deputy Director of the IMF’s African Department. She is directly overseeing the Department’s work and policy priorities on a number of Southern and Central African countries, including South Africa and the CEMAC. Before re-joining the African Department in 2012 she held positions in the European and Monetary and Capital Markets Departments. In her earlier tenure in the African Department (2004-2007) Ms. Gulde was mission chief for the two monetary unions (WAEMU and CEMAC) and coordinated the department’s financial sector work. Ms. Gulde studied Economics, Political Science and History in Tuebingen, (Germany), St. Louis (USA), and Kiel (Germany) and holds a PhD in international economics from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva (Switzerland). She has published widely on different topics in international economics, with a focus on exchange rate regimes, currency boards, and financial stability and development issues. Publications on Africa include among others “The CFA Franc Zone: Common Currency, Uncommon Challenges’’ (with H. Tsangarides, eds, 2008) and “Sub Saharan Africa: Financial Sector Challenges†(with C. Pattillo and J, Christensen).