6. ZIMBABWE’S COMMITMENTS AND TARGETS TOWARDS WOMEN’S FINANCIAL INCLUSION

As an AFI member, RBZ has made 24 commitments to the Maya Declaration under 12 thematic areas.55

Four of them pertain to women and SME Finance:

(i) improve the mechanism for monitoring women's financial inclusion through the implementation of SDD

(ii) collect and maintain disaggregated financial inclusion data

(iii) establish a platform for listing SME

(iv) online purchase of shares.

As of December 2020, four targets have been completed.56 Three of them will positively impact women’s financial inclusion:

1. The Centralized Credit Registry (CCR), established in 2017, collects data from lenders to provide loans based on clients’ data. This has helped women and WSME build credit histories where they would not have been able to otherwise. According to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development Budget Report, CCR had 201 subscribers, 1.2 million credit records, and 771,482 credit inquiries as of March 2020. This has resulted in increased MSME financing. Loans to MSMEs increased, rising from ZWD146.22M in 2017 to ZWD3,013.85M in 2020.

2. The launch of the C-TRADE trading platform in 2018 by the Escrow Group enabled individuals and SMEs to buy and sell shares online. This could help SMEs address their liquidity and financing needs.

3. The launch of the Pfuma Inotho SME funding and listing platform, which not only facilitates payments data-driven listing of SMEs but also enables them to raise funds directly from the capital market for their business.

The RBZ is also a member of AFI’s Gender Inclusive Finance Committee, which provides strategic leadership in advancing women’s financial inclusion in the AFI network.

56 AFI Portal.