From 2016, FSD Africa will increase its focus on inclusive financial sector development in Fragile and Conflict Affected States (FCAS).
Working with key partners, it will identify and apply learning from excellent practice so far to support the well-being of the most vulnerable and marginalised on the African continent.
With this in mind, FSD Africa will work with Mercy Corps to produce a focussed think piece on ‘Approaching Inclusive Financial Sector Development in FCAS in Africa’ by June 2016.
To do this, the team will produce four mini-cases of ‘promising practices’ and will answer the three following questions:
- Defining and understanding FCAS in Africa. What are FCAS, where are FCAS in Africa, and why do they warrant dedicated attention by the international development community?
- Defining and understanding financial sector development in African FCAS. What makes financial sector development in FCAS unique and/or the same and why is it important? What is the role of the financial sector in resilience-building and fostering economic opportunity in FCAS?
- Approaching future financial sector development in African FCAS. What have donors learned so far to improve what they could do in the future?
The learnings will support smart programming by the FSD network and other financial market facilitation agencies. It will also help to identify future key partners with which to work and a list of priority countries and market failures on which to focus.
If you’d like to learn more about the FSD Africa approach to FCAS or know of a ‘promising practice’ that should be showcased then please contact: Joe Huxley, FSD Africa’s Regional Co-ordinator (joe@fsdafrica.org).
