DHAKA: Bangladesh Bank (BB) has been elected the vice-chair of Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) Board for two years (2017-18) among 114 institutions of 95 countries. The BB, the country’s central bank, was elected in the second annual general meeting (AGM) of AFI during its Ninth Global Policy Forum (GPF), held in Sharm El Sheikh of Egypt on September 12-15, according to officials. This achievement has come through the persistent successes of BB in promoting financial inclusion aligning with the national-level or the government’s vision of inclusion and sustainable development under the leadership of Prime Minister (PM) Sheikh Hasina. This very statement has been widely pronounced in different high-level panels of AFI GPF 2017 by the team leader of Bangladesh contingent and BB Deputy Governor S K Sur Chowdhury, they added.
The team leader projected the innovative leadership initiatives of the PM in sustainability and inclusion, which have been highly applauded by the esteemed participants. Following the PM’s ‘climate-sensitive development vision’, BB has been pursuing AFI to address climate change in financial inclusion. It resulted in ‘Sharm El Sheikh Financial Inclusion, Climate Change and Green Finance Accord’, agreed by all member institutions of AFI to go for climate-sensitive policy initiatives for financial inclusion, the officials added. Apart from that, the Bangladesh delegation head attended a top-level panel titled ‘AFI Future -The Role of Issuing Guidance for Financial Inclusion’ in the AFI AGM. The team leader there discussed how national inclusive developmental vision shapes up regulatory initiatives on financial inclusion in Bangladesh. Following his pursuance on ‘Global Standard Policy Committee’, sustainable finance has been included as one of the high-level policy strategies of AFI.
Bangladesh contingent in AFI GPF 2017 comprised of Additional Secretary of Financial Institutions Division (FID) Arijit Chowdhury and Executive Vice Chairman of Micro-credit Regulatory Authority (MRA) Amalendu Mukherji along with other officials of BB, FID and MRA. One of the BB officials won prestigious AFI Member Zone Award 2017 among the officials of AFI member countries for producing knowledge products on financial inclusion through web-based network, which exemplifies the ‘Digital Bangladesh’ vision of the government of Bangladesh.
