Amman, Jordan
May 23, 2012

Good morning. I’m delighted to welcome you to CGAP’s annual meeting.

This is the first time that CGAP has held its annual meeting in the Middle East.

By gathering here in Amman, we’re underscoring our focus on the region that’s at the center of today’s popular outcry for a social and political transformation.

The driving factor within that call for far-reaching change has been a desire for inclusion – a fundamental part of each individual’s aspiration to be a full participant in society: politically, socially and economically.

Broadening financial inclusion is one central aspect of that ideal.

CGAP’s work thus finds itself, today, at center-stage in one of the great dramas of global economic and social development.

And, so, ensuring the success of CGAP’s efforts is more vital than ever.

CGAP’s contribution of global public goods to the discussion of financial inclusion is an admirable mission – and, as chair of CGAP’s Council of Governors, I’ve heard from many of you about how much you appreciate CGAP’s efforts.

Since some of you may be attending a CGAP annual meeting for the first time, let me begin by sharing a few brief thoughts about CGAP, about its idealistic mission, and about its admirable achievements in promoting financial inclusion.

CGAP has been a remarkably successful example of a donor partnership, in which donors decided to pool their resources – rather than to duplicate their efforts – to create a global public good.

CGAP has set a strong example of donor collaboration – in which we have shown that our collective strength is much greater than what our organizations, individually, could have accomplished on their own.

This approach embodies what the World Bank Group’s President, Bob Zoellick, often refers to as “modernized multilateralism.”

From the outset, CGAP has consistently “pushed the envelope” on how to increase financial access for the poor.

Over time, it has helped advance sustainable, commercial microcredit; professionalize our approach to this discipline; promote a diversity of financial services and service providers; and focus on business-model innovations that have the potential to dramatically increase scale and to lower cost.

CGAP has truly shaped the debate – accompanying and, in many ways, anticipating the evolution of our collective thinking on such issues as microcredit, microfinance, access to finance and financial inclusion.

CGAP has been in the forefront of exploring new trends and emerging issues that affect poor people’s access to financial services.

This ability to shape and to respond to the changing environment is reflected in CGAP’s increasing engagement with new players in the financial-inclusion field – and in the development world, more broadly.

It is certainly long past time for us – and for others in this field – to move from a G7 perspective to a broader, and more inclusive, G20 outlook on issues in this realm.

In fact, since there are now 188 members of the World Bank Group: We might even say that we should take a “G188” outlook.

So I’m delighted that India has recently become a member of CGAP – and that CGAP has a deepening engagement with such new emerging markets as Russia, Brazil, and China.

I’m looking forward to welcoming these countries to membership in CGAP when the time is right, hopefully in the near future.

We have much to learn from their experience in building financial inclusion, and we’ll certainly benefit from their participation in the global dialogue on issues that affect poor people’s access to financial services.

For an organization like this, where practitioners are twice or three times removed from the end-users of our efforts, it’s often difficult to establish direct causal impact.

But CGAP can be proud that it does achieve genuine and tangible results.

Let me offer just a few examples of CGAP’s success.

We’ve worked very closely with global standard-setting bodies over the last year and a half, helping them incorporate financial inclusion in the normative standards and guidance that they provide to policymakers at the country level.

We’ve been at the forefront of pushing mobile-phone business-model innovations to reduce the costs of delivering financial services to low-income households.

We’re playing a leading role by encouraging innovation and by generating and disseminating new knowledge on branchless banking. That knowledge influenced key actors – especially policymakers and regulators – and motivated them to consider branchless banking as a solution to increasing financial access for the poor.

And we’ve been engaging with the research community to better understand the financial needs of poor people, and to consider the impact of financial services on their lives.

We’ve done this, in recognition of the need to refocus on the demand side in an industry that some would say has been too focused on the supply side.

We’ve put “clients at the center” again – a fact that has been welcomed with great enthusiasm by the industry as a whole.

The World Bank, as an institution, remains deeply committed to improving financial inclusion.

As some of you know, last year, the network that I lead within the World Bank – our Financial and Private Sector Development network – established a full-scale Practice that is focused on financial inclusion.

Aiming to strengthen in-country implementation and scale, the Financial Inclusion Practice covers micro and SME finance, along with financial infrastructure.

The Practice – in conjunction with the World Bank’s Development Economics network – is also committed to contributing new research and data on financial inclusion.

In April, we launched the Global Financial Inclusion database – the so-called “Findex”: the first database that tracks how adults use financial services, around the world and over time.

Findex is publicly accessible, and it provides comparable individual-level data that facilitate detailed analyses of how adults save, borrow, make payments and manage risk in 148 economies.

Our great thanks go to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the co-funder of Findex.

Findex 2011 confirms that only 50 percent of adults worldwide have an account with a formal financial institution – so CGAP certainly has a lot more work to do in promoting financial inclusion worldwide.

CGAP is a pivotal thought partner for the entire development community as we refine and implement our financial inclusion strategy.

CGAP’s global “applied R&D agenda” is a strong complement to the World Bank’s policy-focused, in-country work – as well as to the IFC’s investments in the private sector, which focus on replication and scaling up.

For all of us, CGAP is the “go-to” resource for research and real-world refinement of business-model innovations, industry trends, knowledge-sharing and the codification of best practices.

Thanks to its nimble and flexible structure, CGAP enjoys great respect and admiration within the World Bank Group.

I know that many of you have questions about what will happen to the World Bank’s funding for CGAP, after the Development Grant Facility funding expires after our Fiscal Year 2014. The Bank has funded CGAP and other global partnership programs through that facility since 1998. The Bank is strongly committed to continuing to fund CGAP, and to finding an alternative funding mechanism to the DGF.

I look forward to working closely with CGAP’s senior leaders as that planning process continues.

In trying to overcome financial exclusion – in trying to provide the world’s poor and near-poor with access to the formal financial sector – we certainly have our work cut out for us.

The world’s financial inclusion gap threatens to widen still further, and to become a chronic chasm.

Yet, through CGAP, we are deploying tactics and techniques – and we are developing knowledge, as a public good – that have the potential to significantly broaden the benefits of financial inclusion.

Through the work that you do, and through the knowledge that you share with the wider development community, you’re helping give the world’s poor and near-poor exactly what they need: a firm foothold on the pathway to prosperity.

I’m very pleased to join you here today at your annual meeting, and I’m looking forward to a stimulating and productive discussion.

Thank you very much.