Representatives from the African Development Bank, the Gates Foundation, the Luxembourg government, AFD, and the ADFI.

The Agence française de développement (AFD) is contributing an additional €3 million to the African Development Bank (AfDB)-managed Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI) to help accelerate financial inclusion in Africa.

The additional funding brings the total amount to €5 million, with the goal of assisting the ADFI partnership in catalysing digital financial solutions across Africa by increasing investment in scalable and replicable initiatives that provide access to credit and other financial services that promote investment and entrepreneurship in underserved communities.

Recent data from the AFD suggest that about half of the continent's adult population, notably women, youth, farmers, small businesses, and rural communities, do not have access to digital financial solutions.

The ADFI, founded in 2019 by the AfDB, the Gates Foundation, and the Luxembourg Ministry of Finance, aims to accelerate the mobilisation of financial and human resources to align financial systems with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, ensuring that vulnerable populations, particularly those in climate-affected regions, have access to financial tools that will help them adapt and thrive.

Mohamadou Ba, head of the AfDB’s financial intermediation and inclusion division, commented: “Digital financial solutions are key to improving the quality of life of people in Africa and 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.”

Audrey Brule-Françoise, head of AFD’s financial systems division, added: "Developing digital financial services is a key pathway to reach financially excluded populations in Africa."