Countries are seeking new ways to address complex and interconnected challenges. Fulfilling the promise of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires multi-sectoral approaches that bring together expertise from a range of perspectives. By harnessing our comparative advantage and working within the context of our respective mandates, we can collectively make significant progress towards realising the vision of the SDGs.

Financial inclusion is increasingly positioned as an enabler of broader development goals, in support of the SDGs. More and more countries are including an inclusive financial sector as a key objective in their national development plans, and this tendency is further underpinned by the G20 leadership of financial inclusion, which highlights the ongoing relevance of the SDGs and nationally led financial inclusion efforts. Furthermore, financial markets play a vital role in creating a sustainable future.

Access to finance for individuals, SMEs and governments is important to a number of the SDGs, helping to facilitate secure payments, including for basic services and trade; smooth cash flows; offer financial protection; and improve allocation of capital while also enabling investments in many areas.

This MAP refresh, in supporting country efforts, increases the focus on inclusive growth (especially through SMEs and agriculture), access to basic services (energy, health and education), and improving household resilience, as well as gender equality. Increased reliance on technological innovation and digital financial services will help to improve the scale and efficiency of financial inclusion interventions.

This refresh was undertaken by the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) to jointly address UNDP’s Signature Solution 1, which seeks to work with countries to keep people out of poverty, relating directly to SDG 1: eradicate all forms of poverty, wherever it exists.

Our technical response

The effective use of a wide range of quality, affordable & accessible financial services, provided in a fair and transparent manner through formal or regulated entities, by all Zimbabweans.

It called for a MAP study on Zimbabwe, which follows an approach adopted in a range of countries, including Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal and Thailand. The 2016 MAP diagnostic report for Zimbabwe considered the country context, demand and supply for financial services, and the regulation of these services. The report identified key target groups that would benefit from greater financial inclusion: micro, medium and small enterprises (MSMEs), women, youth, and people living in rural areas (including small-scale agricultural communities).