Gates Foundation lays out its 3 steps to global financial inclusion
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
By Dion Rabouin
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has made helping the world’s poorest people get access to financial services a major part of his foundation’s efforts in recent years. The organization is making a major push in conjunction with the World Bank to lead that effort with three points Gates Foundation Executive Director Rodger Voorhies laid out on Friday.
The three-part strategy shows where the foundation plans to anchor its efforts over the next few years in order to advance the World Bank’s goal of universal financial access – or getting banking services to everyone on the planet – by 2020.
Voorhies told a gathering at the IMF/World Bank’s spring meeting that closing the gender gap in financial services, providing access to farmers and prodding governments that have lagged in infrastructure and policy would be the three elements the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would target for the next three years.
“In the case of financial inclusion, it’s not about building a parallel system for poor people, but it’s about building inclusive solution for everyone,” Voorhies said.
Photo courtesy of AMISOM Public Information.
