September 13th, 2020

The FSD Network is a family of Financial Sector Deepening programmes seeking to build diverse and inclusive financial systems across Africa that enhance the financial resilience and sustainable livelihoods for all and enable inclusive growth. We believe that financial systems have the potential to play a major role in enabling inclusive growth and ensuring access to basic services while assuring a sustainable future for low-income people. Guided by the imperatives of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the FSD Network seeks to mould sustainable financial systems, enabling them to work more inclusively across Africa. We are deeply committed to equity between men and women and supporting the vulnerable and marginalised.

We affirm the power of financial systems to shape patterns of growth and to enhance the financial resilience of households; but we acknowledge that, left to its own devices, the financial sector may achieve neither inclusive growth nor stronger households. As a Network, we collaborate to achieve real sector impact in ways which help to deliver on the SDGs in each of our countries.

We see a better financial system as an enabler, not as an outcome; consequently, we do not measure outcomes of our work in financial system terms alone. Equally, we believe that technology can be used to solve real world problems but should not be an end in itself. Rather, we acknowledge the value of applying market systems thinking to identify the points of leverage leading to systemic change which benefits the real economy and households, especially the poor, vulnerable and and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). In this process, we see our main role as facilitators, not direct providers of financial services.

We come from a diverse group of African countries with different starting levels of financial development, and different national priorities and approaches to development. This means that we apply a flexible approach to determining our priorities and to sequencing our programmes in each of our countries in order to take advantage of opportunities for leverage as they arise.