ADDIS ABABA –Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed has held discussions with Queen Máxima of the Netherlands on issues of financial inclusion in Ethiopia. The Queen came to Ethiopia in her role as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA).
After the meeting at the PM’s office yesterday, the Queen told the media that she come to Ethiopia for the second time to talk about financial inclusion in Ethiopia and improve the ability of the people to have access to financial services such as saving, payments insurance, credit so that they protect themselves and invest in opportunities that increase their income. “We had a very productive discussion and I knew of the huge reform agenda from the Prime Minister in which we actually depend on,” she said.
She also added that in financial inclusion today, the biggest potential comes from digital financial services. “So we discussed the possibilities of helping the country in developing digital financial services given that there is a lot of expertise within our partners.” Regarding the financial inclusion side, she said, “We have also discussed the refreshing of the national strategy for financial inclusion and setting up of new legislation or regulations so that mobile banking can actually happen.”
In the long term, once there is a possibility to actually build a lot more other products that can actually help farmers and women entrepreneurs, she added. She lauded the changes in liberalization and privatization of various sectors, particularly telecom as impressive in facilitating financial inclusion.
Prime Minister Abiy on his part shared key priorities of the government in laying the critical foundation for structural changes to enable technology to enhance inclusive financing. Meanwhile, the Premier has also met with President of the World Economic Forum, Børge Brende, in a follow-up discussion to their meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
In January 2019, it was announced that Ethiopia would host the 2020 World Economic Forum on Africa. Today, the Prime Minister and Børge Brende signed an agreement that sets forth the terms and conditions applicable to the cooperation of the Forum and the Government for the regional meeting.
The World Economic Forum on Africa will be held in Addis Ababa in September 2020 and is expected to be attended by more than 1,000 people, according to the office of the Prime Minister.
The Ethiopian Herald, May 16/2019
BY MULATU BELACHEW
