CONCLUSION

Financial inclusion is essential to achieving sustainable, resilient, low-carbon and gender-inclusive development. There is an urgent need for financial regulators to implement financial inclusion policies to build resilience against the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation particularly among vulnerable communities and empowering them to reduce their potential negative impact on the environment.

Incorporating environment and climate changerelated elements into an NFIS is highly dependent on the context of a specific country, the level of financial inclusion, climate change vulnerabilities and climate change policy developments. In developing an IGF policy, it is important to consider specific climate vulnerabilities that both the population and specific geographic areas and sectors are facing, particularly among women and young people.

The inclusion of IGF elements into an NFIS as policy agenda not only accelerates green developments in the financial sector, but also aligns with the overall national and international effort to combat climate change.

In addition, it contributes to the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the SDGs.

Therefore, when developing an NFIS, the member institutions should consider integrating goals aimed at environmental protection and adaptation, and the mitigation of climate change. Due to the novelty of the concept, it is highly recommended that countries pursuing climate change agendas in the financial sector adopt the “diagnosticbased” intervention approach. To complement this approach, it would be immensely useful to identify green taxonomies among other green policy approaches in order to to help policymakers in defining “green” and “IGF.” This guideline note addresses various aspects that should be considered when developing an NFIS that aims towards green financial inclusion. An NFIS is a powerful mechanism to unify and coordinate the efforts of different policymakers and stakeholders to accelerate financial inclusion.

The green NFIS will allow the financial inclusion efforts to become more environmentally friendly, to manage environmental risks effectively and to allocate financial resources optimally. This would include achieving a balanced relationship between access and use of the financial system. It will also help advance financial inclusion to build resilience, increase disaster resilience, address climate change vulnerabilities and mitigate contributions to climate change, through financial policies.

Therefore, this guideline note aspires to provide guidance to policymakers with regard to the development and implementation of a green NFIS by sharing ideas/insights and relevant approaches which were drawn from better practices related to the integration of IGF in an NFIS, as applied across the AFI network.