Events & Presentations

September 22, 12:00 - 1:30pm
TRADE Restaurant, 540 Atlantic Ave, Boston, USA

Please join Accion Board members Diana Taylor and Tara Kenney for a lively discussion about Investing in Inclusive Finance. Deborah Drake, Vice President of the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion, will share how Accion is working to harness the capital markets to build a financially inclusive world, helping women in developing countries and the U.S. to better manage their finances, their time, and their livelihoods. By helping these women to access small loans and save safely, Accion is improving the lives of families in 22 countries across four continents. The Accion Women's Network works to highlight and celebrate the enormous impact of the financial assistance that Accion provides to female entrepreneurs in developing countries and in the United States. To RSVP, contact Andrea Horak at 617.684.0245 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

September 17, Washington, D.C., USA

Microfinance Opportunities (MFO) is hosting an interactive event to present the embedded education model and allow participants a chance to critically engage with the financial education approach. The embedded education model integrates activities at pre-existing client touch-points within services to build clients’ knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors toward financial capability. Presenters at the event include Anne Miles, Director of Financial Inclusion at MasterCard Foundation, Lelemba Phirl, Managing Director of Zoona Transactions, Andrea Stiles, Director at Aval Consulting, and Guy Stuart, Executive Director of Microfinance Opportunities. The event will touch on topics including the challenges confronting financial education efforts, experiences employing the embedded education approach in Zambia and Ecuador, and the approach’s pay-for-performance financing model. For more information on the event, click here. For a joint MFO/CFI blog series on the embedded education approach, click here.

September 9-11, Port of Span, Trinidad and Tobago

The Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), in cooperation with the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago (CBTT), will hold the 2014 AFI Global Policy Forum (GPF). The Forum will be held under the overarching theme, "Global Partnerships, National Goals, Empowering People." The Global Policy Forum (GPF) is the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI)’s annual flagship event which gathers together its members and external stakeholders from standard setting bodies, private sector, development community, and the academia, to discuss collaborative ways to advance the financial inclusion agenda globally. CFI Managing Director Elisabeth Rhyne will be speaking in a session that aims to highlight the effectiveness of financial literacy/ education initiatives as well as the different techniques used by developing and emerging countries to assess their impact. For more information, click here.

September 3-5, Mérida, Mexico

The 17th Microcredit Summit will be organized around the theme "Generation Next: Innovations in Microfinance," engaging delegates in a thoughtful discussion around the challenges and opportunities associated with the growth and transformation of the sector, especially through innovative and best practices that accelerate the steps to reach full financial inclusion. CFI's Joshua Goldstein will deliver a keynote speech on disability inclusion. The Financial Inclusion 2020 campaign will lead two workshops at the Summit. The first workshop, Financial Services & Aging: Understanding and Serving the Needs of the Older Generation, wil be held on Wednesday, September 3. The second, Advancing the Roadmap to Financial Inclusion, will be held on Friday, September 5. The second session, drawing on a joint blog series between CFI and the Microcredit Summit Campaign, will explore the challenges and opportunities in advancing the Roadmap to Financial Inclusion, particularly in meeting the unique needs of vulnerable and hard to reach populations.

August 28-29, Perth, Australia

The Fifth Annual Responsible Finance Forum will take place on August 28-29 in Perth, Australia — followed by the SME Finance Forum sponsored session on “Technology/Innovation for Inclusion” on August 30 and the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion Plenary and Forum on September 1. The two-day, invite-only event will focus on Responsible Digital Finance. It will convene industry, government, and private sector leaders to discuss how digital financial services are delivered transparently, fairly, and safely. Alexandra Rizzi, Deputy Director of the Smart Campaign, will participate in a working group on consumer risks associated with digital finance, specifically on issues surrounding transparency.