Thistle Praxis, AFDB aim for financial inclusion as Africa CEOs meet

Consulting firm – Thistle Praxis – and the African Development Bank (AfDB) will be combining to promote financial inclusion in Nigeria, at the upcoming African CEO Roundtable AR – CSR event.

The theme for the 2014 edition of AR-CSR is: The Intersection: Financial Inclusion, Economic Sustainability and Social Benefit.

Financial inclusion is the delivery of financial services at affordable costs to sections of disadvantaged and low-income segments of society.

The World Bank estimates that formal sector businesses in the country obtain only 1 percent of their financing needs from banks and other financial institutions.

The lack of financial inclusion in Nigeria is stifling the growth of start-up businesses and SMEs, which are often the engine of economic growth in developing countries.

The link between financial inclusion and growth lies in the fact that most banks and financial institutions in Nigeria are unwilling to extend credit or give even basic banking services to people with no formal means of identification, an exclusion that often keeps them out of the formal economy.

Despite being the most populous nation and having the largest economy in Africa, Nigeria is a mid-level player in the sub-Saharan banking sector and lags behind some of its peers in Africa with respect to Financial Inclusion.

In a bid to tackle this anomaly, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in 2012, rolled out a financial inclusion strategy, that aims to ensure that a clear agenda is set for increasing both access to and use of financial services within the defined timeline, which is by 2020.

According to the CBN, Financial Inclusion is achieved when adults have easy access to a broad range of financial products designed according to their needs and provided at affordable costs.

These products include payments, savings, credit, insurance and pensions. In 2010, 36 percent of adults – roughly 31 million out of an adult population of 85 million – were served by formal financial services in Nigeria. This figure compares with 68 percent in South Africa and 41 percent in Kenya.

“This edition of the AR-CSRTM will seek to interrogate the intersection where financial inclusion fosters economic sustainability and enhances societal benefit by probing the pooling of the most available investable funds possible and how to channel the funds to attractive production activities, particularly those of small-to-medium size enterprises which are established as the main engines of economic growth and job creation,” said Ini Onuk, lead consultant, Thistle Praxis.

Present at the session will be the 2014 Keynote Speaker and lead discussant, Donald Kaberuka – President, African Development Bank Group (AfDB), which is turning 50 years this year.

This is part of the 2014 edition of the Africa CEO Round-table and Conference on Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility.

“Lack of inclusion and inequality is not only a source of political and social tensions thereby undermining long term sustainability, but exclusion and inequalities means that an economy is operating below its full potential,” Kaberuka said.

The 2014 edition of the AR-CSR™ is scheduled to take place at the Tinapa Business Resort, Calabar, Cross River State from June 19 – 20, 2014, and is presented with support from Shell Nigeria, Diamond Bank, Heritage Bank, Obubra/Etung Federal Constituency Office and hosted by the Cross River State Government.

PATRICK ATUANYA