(Reuters) — Queen Maxima of the Netherlands witnessed the launch of the central bank’s strategy for financial inclusion on Wednesday (July 1), capping her two-day visit to the Philippines.
Maxima, who was designated as the UN Secretary General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development in 2009, attended the ceremony of the Philippine government’s action plan which aims to enhance cooperation between ministries, government agencies and the private sector to improve the population’s access to financial services.
At a news conference, Maxima told journalists how inclusive financing can help with poverty-alleviation, particularly in developing countries like the Philippines.
“There is a huge room for improvement, as you can see. There’s a lot of work that has already been done, and I think the strategy will be providing the necessary changes to actually address this issue. Why is it important? I think that, we’ve actually seen the people, once they actually worked very hard to get out of poverty. You know, they sometimes fall back to poverty because of some unforeseen risks. Is it drought, is it because of the death of a family, is it because of sicknesses? It is really important to protect your people from these risks so that they do not fall back into poverty,” she said.
Maxima, who met with micro-entrepreneurs at a rural community south of Manila on Tuesday (June 30), added how access to formal lending institutions were beneficial for people in the long run and how it can help with economic progress.
“To be fully economically included, you also need to be fully financially included. It’s a means to an end. Financial inclusion is not an end in itself, it’s a means to an end that allows you to be economically included and actually stay there. And that’s what I was trying to say, and it actually brings an infrastructure that brings everybody into the system,” she said.
The United Nations Secretary General’s special Advocate For Inclusive Finance for Development reported that 69 percent of Filipino adults do not subscribe to formal financial services, making it vulnerable to long-term financial problems.