19.03.2020

Promoting the Leadership Role of Women: Personal Take-Aways from the First Scholarship Recipient

For the first time in 2019, the Access to Insurance Initiative (A2ii) and the InsuResilience Global Partnership jointly sponsored the participation of two senior insurance supervisors and high potential women in their regulatory authorities to attend the Leadership and Diversity Programme for Regulators. The nine-month programme includes virtual learning and on-campus training and it is taught by Women’s World Banking and the faculty of the Saïd Business School at Oxford University. The second edition of this programme is running in 2020 with participants from the Philippines and Burundi.

The overall objective of the programme is to strengthen an environment that promotes the financial inclusion of women and to build the leadership capacity of its participants. The nine-month global programme brings together senior officials from central banks and other regulatory agencies in developing economies with high-potential women from their institutions. The Partnership awarded the first scholarship in 2019 to Ms. Hery Rakotoarimanana, Head of the Financial Institutions Department in the Ministry of Finance of Madagascar.

Ms. Rakotoarimanana found that her expectations were met in full. The programme enabled her to improve her leadership skills and exchange knowledge and experiences across country authorities. It also supported her with specific tasks, such as preparing draft legislation on regulating savings groups in Madagascar.

During the programme, different financial inclusion policies were presented from the countries of the participants. The presentations showed that each participating country had already started implementing financial inclusion policies. On that basis, participants exchanged ideas on the potential for improving various policies.

“The programme allowed me to reflect on our proposal for appropriate follow-up of savings groups in Madagascar to promote the empowerment of vulnerable women in rural communities and remote areas through their access to basic financial services (savings and credit) and non-financial services (financial education and training). Our proposed policy also encourages savings groups to establish contacts with formal financial institutions in Madagascar.”

Hery Rakotoarimanana, Head of the Financial Institutions Department in the Ministry of Finance of Madagascar and 2019 Scholarship Holder