This MSME, Rural and Agricultural Finance Policy Brief provides an overview of relevant multi-sectoral policies and strategies aimed to leverage Zambia's financial inclusion agenda for sustainable economic growth. The Policy Brief further highlights the contribution by the Rural Finance Expansion Programme (RUFEP) to the development and implementation of financial inclusion policies and strategies in Zambia. RUFEP is a joint initiative of the Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ) under the Ministry of Finance and National Planning (MoFNP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) with a mandate to promote rural financial inclusion. The Programme aims to promote access to and use of sustainable financial services by poor rural men, women and youth in Zambia predominantly dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods.
The IFAD Rural Finance Policy provides guidance to IFAD-supported rural financial services programmes and projects, and their
components. Given its focus on women, young people, indigenous peoples and very poor households, IFAD concentrates on rural
microfinance, with “micro” referring to the relative size of the financial transactions – including savings, remittances, leasing and risk management services – and “rural” reflecting the location of the entrepreneurs and small-scale agricultural and livestock producers that IFAD targets.
This Financial Sector Development (FSD) Policy expresses the commitment of the Government of the Republic of Zambia to fostering the development of the financial sector through the provision of strategic guidance and oversight. The Policy aims at having a well-developed, competitive, and inclusive financial system that supports efficient resource mobilisation and access to financial services and products by all.
This National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) provides a roadmap to further accelerate our financial inclusion journey in Zambia by setting forth a series of specific, delineated, and sequenced actions for a wide range of stakeholders. Enhanced financial inclusion in various countries has been shown to contribute to wealth creation, economic growth, and sustainable development. The strategy was developed to build on the successes of Zambia’s first and second Financial Sector Development Plans (FSDPs), which ran into two successive five-year cycles from 2004 to 2009 and from 2010 to 2014.