Queen Máxima Keynote Remarks at Inclusive Finance for Development: 15 Years of Impact

New York, USA

Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Financial Health (UNSGSA), delivered keynote remarks at Inclusive Finance for Development: 15 Years of Impact, a high-level event celebrating her 15th anniversary as the UNSGSA, held at the United Nations in New York on 25 September 2024.

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queen maxima
UNSGSA Queen Máxima delivers her first remarks as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Financial Health at the UN in New York, on 25 September 2024. Photo credit: Patrick van Katwijk

It is with great honour that for the last 15 years I have been able to work on improving financial inclusion around the world.

In these years I have met so many women and men like Victoria, Aubrey and Manuel, that were empowered by financial inclusion, unlocking their potential, and building a better life.

With endurance and commitment, we have laid a solid foundation to reduce poverty and improve development opportunities, especially for the world’s most vulnerable people.

From farmers to mothers, from shopkeepers to fishermen, and from grandmothers to children. Nearly all today have access to financial services.

From credit to buy seeds, to health insurance, from payments to strengthen the business, to savings for a new fishing net. From a grandmother’s pension to money for school tuition.

That is the difference that financial inclusion makes.

In 2008, we realized that microcredit was certainly not enough and that we needed to give people the possibility to save, a debt free way to freedom and development. But for people to be able to properly save, they needed to have an account, we needed thus to focus on financial inclusion.

And we all worked so hard to get that access! In order to achieve that, we worked on these building blocks:

We got data to track progress, do research, and be critical about our work.

We worked hand-in-hand with regulators around the world to allow innovation.

We got the Standard-Setting Bodies to embrace financial inclusion, to make it their goal too, and to help us define trade-offs.

We got some amazing initial country examples, that inspired many other countries to follow.

We have today more than 60 countries with national FI strategies that have paved the way to great progress.

We also outlined how digital technology could help our agenda.

In doing so, we focused on inclusion, competition, affordability, safety, security, and privacy.

Which led to the creation of the digital public infrastructure notion, initially called prerequisites, which was so well followed by many organizations.

And this, I say “we” not as a royal prerogative, but “we” as in all the organizations that have worked side by side with me and my office: the UN, the World Bank, the Gates Foundation, AFI, IFC, IMF, Mastercard, Flourish, the CEOs of countless firms, the Basel community, and CGAP. We worked seamlessly together, in every visit to every country, in every report that was written, in every policy note. We spoke with one voice.

So, the access agenda has been a huge success. Before I started, of course, we had no data, but we were well under 50%, and today, ladies and gentleman, we are above 80%. Something we should be very proud of.

Of course, 80% plus is not 100%, so work still needs to be done to reach the 1.5 billion more people that remained unbanked. I am extremely happy with today’s Call to Action where all the partners are committing to reach half by 2030.

But it is also very important to realize that access and usage is not enough.

Access to financial services is only the first step.

We have built the rails. Now, what we really want to accomplish, is that households everywhere in the world have the right financial tools to manage their day-to-day expenses, invest in their future, and protect themselves against shocks like illness, a job loss, or climate-related events.

This is what I call “Financial Health”.

For example, are we really helping people to better save, to build a buffer in case of emergencies, or for future opportunities? In the case of Aubrey, she had the credit to invest in her shop and increase her income, but she had no health insurance, and having a child with health problems, any health drawback still leads to huge financial distress for her...even probably losing her shop.

Also, too much access to certain types of credit could lead to over-indebtedness. Could we, for example, instead of promoting Buy Now Pay Later schemes, build more on Save Now Buy Later and avoid painful over-indebtedness traps? And if we speak about inclusion and equality, in the Netherlands, women have 35% less pension than the men...they have access to pension, they are financially included, but they are not covered sufficiently for their later life.

This is as relevant in the developing countries as it is in the developed world, so in Kenya, India and Mexico, but also here in the States and in my country The Netherlands.

If we want to contribute to the financial health of people and society, we need to change how we develop our products, that fit people’s complex financial lives.

These great examples in Tanzania, Colombia, and Philippines show that with commitment we can design products that really make a difference.

This will be my new focus for the coming years.

So that people like Manuel, Victoria, and Aubrey can not only dream about a better future, but really build one.

I look forward to this new journey with all the partners. And I would like to thank them, my partners-in-crime, for a wonderful journey these last 15 years. I would also like to thank the Secretary-General and UNDP for their trust. Last but not least, I would like to thank my country The Netherlands for their support all the way, Prime Ministers, Ministers, advisors, friends, and of course, my wonderful family.

Thank you so much.