The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is to partner with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) for the effective implementation of the Nigerian National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS).
The Governor of the CBN, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, made this known on Monday in Abuja at the launch of the Geospatail Mapping System, to track the effective implementation of the NFIS in Nigeria.
The NFIS was launched in October, 2012, and has an overall target of reducing the number of adults excluded from access to financial services from 46.3 per cent in 2010 to 20 per cent in 2020.
The Geospatail Mapping is a tool, which can be used by policy makers to collect, collate and analyse data.
Sanusi said: “The Central Bank of Nigeria is very pleased to be partnering with the Gates foundation and looks forward to the next phase of the project.
“It is imperative that going forward, a determination is made of additional information that may be relevant to our inclusion and regulation efforts that are not already accounted for in this round.”
He expressed the hope that the partnership with the foundation would go a long way in realising the set targets and achieve success.
“The potential uses of a tool like this are limitless and the CBN is excited to be partnering with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on this project.
“It will act as a catalyst in the realisation of the targets outlined in our National Financial Inclusion Strategy,’’ he said.
According to him, financial inclusion efforts rely largely on data based evidence which is why tracking the progress of our National Financial Inclusion Strategy needs to be data driven.
He said that the tool, as developed by BMGF, would go a long way in providing the necessary support for gathering, monitoring and analysing data, while implementing the strategy.
Sanusi said that the interactive mapping tool, which had been developed would also provide consumers of financial services in the area with the ability to find financial access points within a five kilometre radius of any point on the map.
“This proximity-based approach reflects geographic distribution of financial access points creating an ease of access to live information of the services provided by the access points.
“It is also important to note that the statistics provided from this mapping will enable Nigeria measure certain indicators and compare them across several countries providing for country by country comparison on progress of our inclusion efforts.”
Sanusi commended the foundation for making a commitment to support the CBN to actualise set out targets in the strategy.
He said that Gates identified certain areas for collaboration with the CBN based on their assessment of Nigeria’s needs with respect to Financial Inclusion, as well as the capacity of their partners.
These areas, he said include Geo-Spatial Mapping, capacity building initiatives for the Shared Services Office, which drives the Shared Services initiatives, including the Cashless Nigeria Policy.
Others are Capacity building Support for the Financial Inclusion Secretariat that would drive the implementation of the NFIS.
The governor said that the visual display of data would make it easy to see and measure evolution over time and mark progress towards channels and products NFIS.
