AFI's Engages with a Variety of Partners
While AFI membership is restricted to policymaking and regulatory institutions only, AFI engages with a variety of stakeholders, including the private sector, through its strategic partnership platforms. AFI’s three key partnership categories are:
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Funding Partners
Like-minded intellectual partners who contribute unique knowledge, insights and financial resources to advance AFI’s mission and scale up our broad range of member services and offerings.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation official website
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Grant-making foundation supports initiatives in financial inclusion, education, world health and population, and community giving in the Pacific Northwest.
IDRC official website
https://www.idrc.ca/
International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
The International Development Research Centre is a Canadian federal Crown corporation that invests in knowledge, innovation, and solutions to improve lives and livelihoods in the developing world.
BMZ official website
http://www.bmz.de/en/
German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Omidyar Network
Omidyar Network invests in entrepreneurs who share its commitment to advancing social good at the pace and scale the world needs today. Omidyar Network is focused on five key areas it believes are building blocks for prosperous, stable, and open societies: Consumer Internet and Mobile, Education, Financial Inclusion, Governance & Citizen Engagement, and Property Rights.
Public-Private Dialogue (PPD) Partners
Leading global and regional private sector institutions that have a keen interest and proven capacity to advance financial inclusion in developing and emerging countries. Each AFI PPD Partner contributes unique knowledge, resources and expertise to support AFI programs and activities. In turn, they benefit from a variety of offerings that promote frank dialogue and knowledge sharing on financial inclusion with regulators and policymakers in the AFI Network.
Visa Inc
Visa is a global payments technology company working to enable consumers, businesses, banks and governments to use digital currency.
mastercard
http://www.mastercard.com/index.html
mastercard
mastercard is a technology company in the global payments industry.
mastercard has been a part of the AFI PPD since 2015.
GSM Association (GSMA)
The GSM Association, formed in 1995, is an association of mobile operators and related companies devoted to supporting the standardising, deployment and promotion of the GSM mobile telephone system.
GSMA has been part of the AFI PPD since 2015
Knowledge Resource Partners
Generally non-profit institutions that have demonstrated significant thought leadership in financial inclusion policy. These institutions have bilateral cooperation agreements with AFI and systematically provide AFI members with unique technical know-how that enhances members’ capacity to develop and implement policy solutions.
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
GIZ assists the German Government in achieving its objectives in the field of international cooperation, offering demand-driven, tailor-made and effective services for sustainable development. GIZ sees close and trusting cooperation with organisations operating in the field of international cooperation and sustainable development as absolutely pivotal.
International Telecommunication Union
https://www.itu.int/en/Pages/default.aspx
International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
ITU is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies – ICTs. It allocates global radio spectrum and satellite orbits, develops the technical standards that ensure networks and technologies seamlessly interconnect, and strives to improve access to ICTs to underserved communities worldwide. ITU is committed to connecting all the world's people – wherever they live and whatever their means. Through our work, we protect and support everyone's fundamental right to communicate.
UNCDF
http://www.uncdf.org
United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF)
UNCDF is the UN’s capital investment agency for the world’s 48 least developed countries (LDCs). With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. This last mile is where available resources for development are scarcest; where market failures are most pronounced; and where benefits from national growth tend to leave people excluded.
AFI Partnership Champions
First, we acknowledge partners that have supported AFI with funding and intellectual cooperation that have scaled up AFI’s services significantly.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – AFI’s founding partner whose support has been instrumental to help advance digital financial services.
German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) - that has partnered with AFI to advance SME finance, capacity building, gender and financial inclusion for women, financial inclusion for forcibly displaced persons, and work at the regional level in Africa, Arab Region and elsewhere.
Omidyar Network - which has supported AFI’s transition to independence and the rollout of AFI’s global workstream on FinTech/Reg-Tech.
International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada - for supporting AFI's work on gender, digital finance, consumer protection and financial inclusion data, and for IDRC's integral role in enabling the launch of AFI's Regional Initiative in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The French Development Agency (AFD) for their support in scaling up digital finance in Africa and beyond.
Data2X for providing two small pilot grants to support the collection of sex-disaggregated data.
More recently, AFI received funding from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMU) to implement a new work stream on Financial Inclusion and Climate Change.
We also recognize AFI’s current private sector partners that have significantly raised awareness among AFI members of emerging technologies, innovative products and services and regulatory opportunities and risks, particularly in digital financial services. These partners are Visa, Mastercard, GSMA, TransferTo and Letshego.
We recognize AFI’s official knowledge partners with whom we have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and official letter of cooperation: Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and African Development Bank (AfDB).
We would also like to give special recognition to the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) for being AFI’s long-term partner in a number of areas, including technical cooperation, support at the country, regional and global level, and host institution for AFI until 2016.
There are many other valuable partners and stakeholders that have helped AFI and its members develop and implement successful financial inclusion policies. We look forward to formalizing collaboration agreements that will create more opportunities for cooperation and benefits for our members.