Minister of Social Development Frederick Stephenson will represent St. Vincent and the Grenadines at a high level forum to take place in New York next week.
The Partnerships for Financial Inclusion event is slated for April 29th and 30th and will bring together Ministers of Social Development Leaders of International Corporations and high level officials from the financial services sector and key foundations.
The delegates will discuss the way forward for partnerships on financial inclusion in the region.
The forum is organised by the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Social Protection Network (OAS/IASPN), a co-operation mechanism established by OAS member states in 2009 for the exchange of information on successful experiences and knowledge on social protection in the Americas.
The OAS/IASPN will partner with the U.S. Department of State, the Cities for Financial Empowerment (CFE) Fund and New York City Department of Consumer Affairs Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE), in hosting the event.
The Event will take place at the Millennium Broadway Hotel.
The objectives of this conference are:
Share U.S. and LAC countries’ experiences and lessons learned on financial inclusion and asset-building programming;
Identify opportunities in financial inclusion programming in Latin America and the Caribbean; and
Engage financial services and foundation sectors to partner on addressing the needs and challenges of financial inclusion in the region.
The OAS/IASPN’s Partnerships for Financial Inclusion event will provide an opportunity for LAC governments to learn from the successful experiences of U.S. municipalities and other governments from the region that have built and grown financial empowerment programs, products and services. American cities have increasingly employed successful, large scale, financial empowerment strategies into their poverty fighting agenda, often integrating them directly into social service delivery streams. In showcasing some of these experiences, government officials will:
Gain insights on how to create an enabling framework to develop and implement financial inclusion and asset building programs;
Learn about different techniques and programs that are being studied or have been implemented and evaluated to help people transition from fringe markets to the financial mainstream including behavioral economics techniques used to encourage participation;
Discuss collaborative mechanisms and coalition building in support of sharing knowledge, expertise and lessons learned on financial inclusion and asset-building program.
