Learnings from the Remittance Access Initiative (RAI) in partnership with IFAD’s Financing Facility for Remittances

Cenfri, in partnership with IFAD’s Financing Facility for Remittances recently shared insights at several of IFAD’s National Remittance Stakeholder Network (NRSN) meetings. These meetings were established by the Platform for Remittances, Investment and Migrants’ Entrepreneurship in Africa (PRIME Africa) and offer collaborative spaces for the members to exchange practices that promote innovative business models and products, showcase public-private partnerships and address new trends and market opportunities. Each meeting gathers key stakeholders in the remittance industry to facilitate dialogue among parties and share information, challenges, opportunities, and practices.

At the Kenya, The Gambia, Ghana, Uganda and Senegal NRSN events, Cenfri shared our two-pronged approach to reduce remittance access barriers for low-income, rural households and women by:

• Evaluating potential for remittance access innovation within the existing national legislative and regulatory frameworks and
• Providing technical assistance to remittance service providers.

By working with remittance services providers, the RAI works to improve know-you-customer (KYC) and customer-due-diligence (CDD) processes through a number of interventions such as: strengthening risk assessment frameworks, and improving the reach of RSPs for inclusive remittance ecosystems. You can read further details from the NRSN meetings below.

A year later

In early 2023, we circled back to these focus countries to present preliminary outcomes at the National Remittance Stakeholder Network  and community of practice. These were the talking points for each:

If you would like to know more about this programme, please contact Masiiwa Rusare