The Maya Declaration

The Maya Declaration is a global initiative for responsible and sustainable financial inclusion that aims to reduce poverty and ensure financial stability for the benefit of all. It is the first global and measurable set of financial inclusion commitments by developing and emerging economies.

Since its launch at the 2011 Global Policy Forum (GPF) in Mexico, members of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, or AFI, have made concrete financial inclusion targets, continued to implement in-country policy improvements and regularly shared progress updates on the AFI Data Portal (ADP).

As of July 2019, AFI member institutions have made a total of 734 Maya Declarations targets. AFI members include roughly 100 central banks and other financial regulatory institutions from nearly 90 emerging and developing economies.

Background 

The Maya Declaration is broad in nature, focusing on creating the right environment; implementing the correct framework; ensuring consumer protection measures are taken and using data to inform and track financial inclusion efforts. The declaration was made through AFI’s network of financial institutions and although no vote was taken, its common principles have been implicitly adopted by all of the network’s members.

Member institutions have followed up on the declaration with specific commitments for their national efforts. The Bank of Uganda, for example, committed to “increase the percentage of women formally financially included from 54 percent in 2018 to 75 percent by 2022”. While the Palestine Monetary Authority committed in 2018 to “increase the SMEs [small and medium enterprise] credit portfolio from 15 percent of total credit portfolio to 30 percent at least within 5 years”.

The specific nature of these and other commitments under the broad principles of the Maya Declaration have attracted the attention of other organizations with an interest in financial inclusion, including the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), GSMA the World Bank, the Group of 20 (G20) and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands in her capacity as UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development.

The Maya Declaration has paved the way for the developments and implementation of various accords over the years, each of which emphasizes a specific aspect of financial inclusion, corresponding to the present needs of financial regulators and policymakers against the outlook of the financial sector.

Full Text of Maya Declaration 

Maya Declaration on Financial Inclusion

We, the Members of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, a network of central banks, supervisors and other financial regulatory authorities met in Riviera Maya, Mexico, 28 to 30 September 2011, on the occasion of the Third AFI Global Policy Forum,

Recognize the critical importance of financial inclusion to empowering and transforming the lives of all our people, especially the poor, its role in improving national and global financial stability and integrity and its essential contribution to strong and inclusive growth in developing and emerging market countries;

Reaffirm the value of peer-to-peer knowledge exchange and learning among financial regulators and policymakers for the design and implementation of innovative financial inclusion policy solutions relevant to the developing world;

Recall our efforts over the last two years to strengthen and expand the AFI network and to identify and explore high-priority areas for financial inclusion policy in the developing world through AFI’s working groups;

Commit as a network of developing and emerging market financial regulators and policymakers to:

a.    Putting in place a financial inclusion policy that creates an enabling environment for costeffective access to financial services that makes full use of appropriate innovative technology and substantially lowers the unit cost of financial services;

b.   Implementing a sound and proportional regulatory framework that achieves the complementary goals of financial inclusion, financial stability, and financial integrity;

c.    Recognizing consumer protection and empowerment as key pillars of financial inclusion efforts to ensure that all people are included in their country’s financial sector;

d.    Making evidence-based financial inclusion policy a priority by collecting and analyzing comprehensive data, tracking the changing profile of financial inclusion, and producing comparable indicators in the network.

We remain dedicated to making financial inclusion a reality through concerted domestic and global actions, and actively sharing our knowledge and experience through the AFI network. We commit to delivering concrete financial inclusion outcomes for the developing world to provide sustainable, relevant, cost-effective, and meaningful financial services for the world’s financially unserved populations.

External links 
 The Alliance for Financial Inclusion
 Full Text of the Maya Declaration (PDF): English| Spanish | French

References 

Maya Declaration