The Agence française de développement commits a further 3 million euros to the Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility, strengthening is commitment to boost digital financial inclusion across Africa

AFD is a co-founder of ADFI in 2019, together with the African Development Bank, the Gates Foundation and the Ministry of Finance, Government of Luxembourg, joined by the Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, France, the Women's Enterprise Finance Initiative (We-Fi) and the Ministry of Finance, India in 2020, 2022 and 2023 respectively.

The ADFI partnership recognises that financial inclusion is more than just access to financial services, but a powerful lever for tackling today's social, economic and environmental challenges and can stimulate growth by facilitating access to credit and other financial services that support investment and entrepreneurship.

AFD Group is strongly committed to ensuring that vulnerable populations—especially in regions most affected by climate change—have access to financial tools that help them adapt and thrive. As part of its broader mandate, the AFD Group is working to align financial systems with the Sustainable Development Goals by mobilizing more resources toward the most vulnerable countries and communities. This approach contributes to reducing poverty and inequality while preserving global public goods.

This collaboration with ADFI enables the facility to learn from best practices and help scale up initiatives to meet the needs of financially excluded and underserved people in Africa.

"Developing digital financial services is a key pathway to reach financially excluded populations in Africa," said Audrey Brule-Françoise, Head of AFD’s Financial Systems Division. "Through our continued collaboration within ADFI, we aim to promote access to digital financial services that are tailored to diverse needs and delivered in a responsible manner. This new contribution will help scale up impactful and inclusive solutions."

The AFD Group is committed to ensuring that vulnerable populations, including those in regions most affected by climate change, have access to financial services that enable them to build resilience and adapt to shifting environmental conditions.

"The AFD Group is committed to accelerating the mobilization of financial and human resources in order to align the financial system with the Sustainable Development Goals. It aims to ensure a greater and more systematic allocation of investments to the most vulnerable countries and populations, thereby contributing to the fight against poverty and inequality, and to the preservation of global public goods. Developing digital financial services is a key pathway to reach out the financially excluded populations in Africa,” said Audrey Brule-Françoise, Head of AFD’s Financial Systems Division. “Through our continued collaboration within ADFI, we aim to promote access to digital financial services that are adapted to diverse needs and delivered in a responsible manner. This new contribution will help scale up impactful, inclusive solutions.”

Despite the growing evidence of digitization catalysing sustainable development in Africa, recent data shows that nearly half the continent’s adult population does not benefit from digital financial solutions, particularly women, youth, farmers, small businesses and rural communities.

ADFI supports the African Development Bank’s Ten-Year Strategy focus on inclusive growth and the High 5 priority to Improve the quality of life for the people of Africa. Its role also aligns with the Bank’s financial sector development department’s mandate to improve access to finance for the underserved. ADFI works to scale innovative digital financial solutions under the three broad strategic pillars of infrastructure, policies and regulations and product innovation.  Capacity building and gender inclusion cut across all interventions.

Mohamadou Ba, head of the African Development Bank’s Financial Intermediation and Inclusion Division, said, “Digital financial solutions are key to improving the quality of life of people in Africa and to reducing the gender access to finance gap. We welcome the Agence française de développement’s renewed support of the catalytic role ADFI has been playing in accelerating greater access and usage of digital financial solutions and financial inclusion across the continent. We look forward to working together to scale our efforts to enhance the impact on greater economic empowerment, resilience and growth across Africa.”

About Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI)

The Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI) was launched in 2019 by the African Development Bank in partnership with the Gates Foundation, the French Development Agency (AFD), the Ministry of Finance, Government of Luxembourg, joined by the Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, France, the Women's Enterprise Finance Initiative (We-Fi) and the Ministry of Finance, India in 2020, 2022 and 2023 respectively.  

Through catalytic and strategic investments throughout Africa, ADFI seeks to break down barriers to the growth, uptake and use of digital financial solutions to accelerate financial inclusion in general and reduce the gender gap in financial inclusion in particular. The facility intervenes across three main pillars: (i) digital infrastructure (ii) policy and regulation and (iii) products and innovation with gender inclusion and capacity building as cross-cutting themes.