Transforming African Finance: A Call to Action for Inclusive Prosperity

The signatories emphasize the importance of digital financial inclusion in shaping a more prosperous and inclusive Africa. They identify three key trends that offer optimism for the continent's future:

1. Unified Internal Market: The creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has successfully unified the internal market, comprising 55 countries and 1.4 billion people. Aligned with the African Union's Agenda 2063, the signatories believe that digital financial inclusion will play a pivotal role in the success of the single market.

2. Leadership by Women and Youth: The continent is witnessing a new entrepreneurial leadership, predominantly led by women and young individuals who dominate a majority of economic activities. Notably, 70% of intra-African trade is facilitated by women.{loadmoduleid 377}

3. Innovation in Digital Finance: Africa is becoming a global hub for innovation in digital finance. The increasing number of new actors, including electronic currency issuers, is challenging the historical financial exclusion that plagued the continent. Digital financial inclusion has demonstrated its potential as a catalyst for achieving 13 out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) worldwide.

Given Africa's global leadership in digital financial innovation, the signatories outline ten major actions for both the private and public sectors, sub-regional regulators, and development institutions to strengthen the foundations of renewed prosperity:

For Private Sector Actors:

1. Support the emergence of regional champions by aiding their digitalization, focusing on financial and logistical services that cater to the specific and evolving needs of women, youth, and small businesses.

2. Enhance private financing for market expansion through responsible innovations that encourage sectoral mobile banking mutualization and their interconnections with payment service providers.

3. Foster collaboration between banks, major operators, fintechs, and startups to broaden the portfolio of digital financial and non-financial services accessible to merchants based on their level of formalization.

4. Expand the acceptance networks for digital payments across the entire territory, particularly in border areas.

For National Public Sector Actors, Regulators, and Sub-Regional Community Institutions:

5. Achieve interoperability of payment means and systems by leveraging aggregators and their expertise acquired over the last decade in facilitating payments at both national and regional levels.

6. Promote transparency in all costs associated with financial transactions to better integrate merchant business models and provide clarity to end customers.

7. Ensure accessibility and effectiveness of recourse mechanisms, both nationally and for cross-border operations, to enhance buyer confidence.

8. Introduce flexibility in digital identity initiatives and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) requirements, considering the formalization levels of national economies to reduce financial exclusion of certain segments and actors.

9. Ensure the efficiency of verification mechanisms and enforcement of sub-regional and continental integration provisions related to the free movement of goods, people, and capital across borders.

10. Accelerate the promotion of intra-African bilateral cooperation for scaling, harmonizing, or developing standards and best practices that encourage responsible digitization of financial services on the continent, particularly in areas such as anti-money laundering, recourse mechanisms, and the strength and reliability of digital infrastructure.

This collective call to action aims to leverage Africa's unique position in the global digital financial landscape to promote responsible and inclusive prosperity, dispelling unwarranted pessimism and ushering in a new era of economic growth.{loadmoduleid 378}