Make financial inclusion a reality for poor : Queen Maxima

Dutch Queeen Maxima Zorreguieta Cerruti on Wednesday stressed the need for enacting a national strategy with a clear target for making financial inclusion a reality in Bangladesh for the poor people in general, and rural people and women in particular.
‘Make financial inclusion a reality in Bangla,’ she urged at a press conference in Dhaka.
Queen Maxima arrived in Dhaka on Monday on a three-day official visit in her capacity as the UN Secretary General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development.
Financial inclusion ‘is a very important tool’ for inclusive growth in any given country as well as for attaining Social Development Goals’, she said on the last day of her 3-day official visit.
Stability, transparent system, integrity and coordinated efforts were essential to materialise financial inclusion, the UN envoy said, mentioning that only ‘30 per cent of the adults in Bangladesh have access to formal financial services’.
Creating jobs, upholding rights of the workers, payments to staff through banking channels, encouraging people for savings and taking insurance schemes, sending remittances in proper official channels and creating provisions for providing pension to staff, expansion of mobile banking system, among others, would support the efforts for financial inclusion, Maxima said.
Urging to make easy products of for poorer people in general, and rural people and women in particular, she said, ‘Access to financial services is important. But the more important issue is how many people use it.’
‘It is also important to ensure that [rights of the] consumers of financial services are protected,’ she said.
Replying to a question as to what extent corruption and lack of governance deter poorer section of the society from getting benefits of financial inclusion in Bangladesh, the UN envoy said ‘maintaining a transparent system is a very important issue’ not only for the government institutions, but also for the private sector and the non-government organisations.
In Bangladesh, ‘women have a lower rate of financial inclusion than men – 26 per cent versus 35 per cent’, according to a document distributed among journalists by accompanying aides of the UN envoy.
The gender gap on financial inclusion in South Asia as a whole is 18 per cent and it is the largest among developing regions, it said.
Earlier on the day, the UN envoy made courtesy calls on president Abdul Hamid at Bangabhaban, prime minister Sheikh Hasina at her official residence Ganobhaban and finance minister AMA Muhith at the secretariat.
Maxima was appraised of the government’s steps for development in general and empowering women in particular.
She praised the micro-credit activities in Bangladesh and said its [micro-credit] success in alleviating poverty ‘is praiseworthy’, private news agency UNB reported.
During her meeting with Sheikh Hasina, Queen Maxima assured that the Netherlands would extend its all-out support to Bangladesh to accelerate its development efforts to materialise its Vision 2021.
Dutch ambassador to Dhaka Leoni Cuelenaere and his counterpart to the Hague Sheikh Mohammed Belal, UN resident coordinator Robert Watkins, Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman, among others, were present during the meetings.
Queen Maxima left Dhaka on Wednesday night.

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