EIB President Werner Hoyer joined Her Majesty Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, the UN Secretary General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, to deliver a keynote speech on financial inclusion on the occasion of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor’s (CGAP) council of governor’s annual meeting in Amsterdam on 15 May.
Now more than ever, inclusion is vital: “the provision of inclusive financial services to micro-entrepreneurs, smallholder households and socially vulnerable groups, including women and the youth, is a crucial vehicle to promote economic development and help people out of poverty,” stated President Hoyer, while further pointing out that “to break this vicious circle of poverty and informal, cash-based economy, financial inclusion must be promoted as an economic and development policy tool.”
The CGAP meeting was attended by around 100 representatives for governments and international agencies. Afterwards, President Hoyer discussed youth unemployment, entrepreneurship and SME financing with Queen Maxima in a bilateral meeting, and met with senior officials from Luxembourg’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the EBRD and the IFC, amongst others.