25 January 2010: The AFI Steering Committee met for the third time on 20 January 2010. Meeting via video-link up, discussions centered around key issues of governance and of future strategic direction.

Opening the meeting, Committee Chair, and Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u, acknowledged a number of important developments that have taken place since the last meeting of the Committee in September last year and urged fellow members to “lead the way — with home grown financial inclusion policies … to grow and develop the network.”

In a major development for AFI governance, the Steering Committee approved and endorsed the ‘AFI by-laws’, enabling a solid governance guideline and base for the ongoing development of the network. The group also moved forward with discussions and planning for the selection of the potential additional members of the Committee as well as for Steering Committee Independent Advisor. A number of potential shortlist countries were identified from focused candidate search will now be initiated.

In the area of strategic direction, the Committee were updated a number of key issues including various collaborations with other stakeholders, AFI member surveys, AFI secondment programme and potential venues of the next Global Policy Forum. Specific updates were given on recent and ongoing collaboration by AFI on the G20 Financial Inclusion Initiative and the planned creation of AFI working groups on focus issues such as M-banking and financial inclusion data. The Steering Committee confirmed their support and active issues in these areas.

“AFI is poised to play a very critical role as new financial system architecture is developed and unveiled. On our part as Steering Committee members, we shall continue to provide the necessary support. It is also important that as AFI members, we keep on interacting and sharing information sets that will enrich our financial inclusion initiatives” said Professor Ndung’u in his closing remarks, underlining the Steering Committees ongoing commitment to the AFI network and activities.