The AFI Steering Committee held its second meeting right after the Global Policy Forum in Nairobi, Kenya. At the meeting, the Steering Committee identified key factors to the success of the Forum, including the high caliber of the policymakers who attended, the quality of the content of the discussions, the use of innovative formats such as fishbowls, and the unique opportunities offered for networking and knowledge-exchange. Steering Committee members also made concrete suggestions for next year’s Forum and identified key follow-up activities. These include using the upcoming AFI web portal to share policy papers and practical case studies to be written by our members, using virtual fishbowls to continue the dialogue, and conducting member surveys to assess member needs and identify ongoing financial inclusion initiatives.

Other key outcomes include:

• Review of AFI governance. Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u, Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya, was elected the first chairperson of the AFI Steering Committee. The Steering Committee also agreed to add two new members and made concrete suggestions on updating AFI’s by-laws. The selection of the new members and the finalization of the by-laws will take place at the next Steering Committee meeting.
• Financial inclusion in the G-20 agenda. The Steering Committee agreed on the need to engage developing countries in the upcoming G-20 initiative on financial inclusion and suggested that AFI play a role by bringing the experiences and voices of its members to the table.
• Creation of an AFI data platform. The presentation of the Bank of Thailand at the Forum and the discussion that followed showed that there is a clear interest from AFI members to share and compile knowledge on using survey data to design financial inclusion policy. AFI will support the creation of a working group on financial inclusion data to support this dialogue.
• Follow-up with FATF. It was agreed that AFI will continue to reach out to FATF and its regional associations to continue the discussion from the Forum and to engage policymakers in this process.

Finally, it was agreed that the next meeting of the AFI Steering Committee will be held in January 2010.