![]() ![]() Contributing to low wealth levels of divorced women compared to men near retirement may be a lack of adequate financial literacy. ![]() Unmarried, particularly divorced, women near retirement age have substantially lower wealth levels than married couples and unmarried men, and the difference is only partially explained by lower levels of permanent earnings and labor force attachment ( Levine, Michell, and Phillips 2002 Zissimopoulos, Karney, and Rauer 2008). These factors put women at higher risk than men of having financial problems (e.g., Weir and Willis 2000) and of approaching retirement with insufficient savings. Women tend to live longer than men, have shorter work tenures, lower earnings and levels of pension or survivors’ benefits. The objective of this program is to support financial regulators to develop policy initiatives that close the gender gap in financial inclusion, and to build women’s leadership pipeline and promote greater institutional gender diversity in regulatory organizations.Īpplications for the next cohort of the Leadership and Diversity Program for Regulators will open in the spring of 202 3. This 12-week program, taught by Women’s World Banking and Faculty from Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, implemented together with the AFI, brings together senior officials from central banks and other regulatory agencies and high-potential women from their respective institutions. Leadership and Diversity Program for Regulators 40 policy changes in the area of gender inclusive finance have been reported by 22 member institutions. Under the Maya Declaration, more than 40 members have committed to at least one target related to gender inclusive finance. Since adopting the DAP, AFI’s working groups have completed close to 30 publications that guide policy and regulatory efforts that drive gender inclusive finance. Committee members are the Bank of Ghana (Chair), Bangladesh Bank (Vice-Chair), Bank Al-Maghrib, Palestine Monetary Authority, Banco Central del Paraguay, Bank of Uganda and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. The GIFC provides leadership and strategic guidance on advancing and promoting gender inclusive finance across the AFI Network. Supporting these aims is AFI’s Gender Inclusive Finance Committee (GIFC), which was established at the 2017 AFI GPF in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. It is positive to see that whilst a halving of the gender gap has not been manifested fully across the network, although m embers have met this target at a national level, the overall global gender gap in women’s access to formal financial products and services has now reduced by 33 percent to 6 percent across developing and emerging economies. Since the adoption of the DAP, regulators have concentrated their efforts in developing gender inclusive financial policy and regulation and the collection and analysis of sex disaggregated data. The Gender Inclusive Finance workstream is partially financed by Sweden and other partners. They account for a third of all SMEs, a segment that has long been recognized as an important engine of growth and job creation.Īlongside gender-sensitive policies, collecting and analyzing sex-disaggregated data is essential to address this gender gap as it can both inform evidence-based financial inclusion policymaking and track the effectiveness of efforts to address barriers faced by women. Women-led small and medium enterprises (SMEs) already make significant contributions to the economies in which they operate. Greater financial inclusion of women also makes business sense with estimates suggesting that advancing women’s equality could add some USD12 trillion to global gross domestic product by 2025. Still, much work needs to be done to address structural inequalities that deny women economic opportunities and to ensure economic benefits are shared equally. The Global Findex revealed that the gender gap in access to financial services has narrowed for the first time, from 9% in 2011 to 6% in 2021, though it remains significantly wider in parts of South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa, as well as a few sub-Saharan African economies, leaving 745 million women financially excluded. Significant gains in financial inclusion have been made in recent years. Increasing women’s financial inclusion and narrowing the gender gap through gender responsive financial policy and regulation has been at the forefront of AFI’s policy discourse since the Denarau Action Plan (DAP) was adopted in 2016 at the annual Global Policy Forum in Fiji.
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