To kick off this edition, we are pleased to report on our great start to the month: the EIB West and Central Africa SME Banking and Microfinance Academy, which took place on 5–6 October. The two-day virtual forum, co-hosted by MFW4A, featured debates and interactive presentations on a number of pertinent themes. Key among these were how financial institutions (FIs) in the region can encourage entrepreneurship, integrate climate change into their operations, promote gender financing, and pursue opportunities in the digitalization of services. The event was a great success, with over 600 financial professionals from more than 60 countries taking part. If you missed it, could not attend all the sessions or would like to revisit any sessions, you can easily access all recordings and materials via the programme website.

We also take this opportunity to report on other recent MFW4A events and activities. 

One was the three-day virtual Africa FinTech Festival, held on 13–15, October with MFW4A's Coordinator, Abdelkader Benbrahim, participating on  the “Knitting the regulatory framework for sustainable growth of the African economy” panel. 

Our flagship webinar series kicked off on the 13 October, with a session on The Key to Unlocking Financial Inclusion in Developing Economies. We invite you to register for our upcoming webinars: the first on The MANSA Platform: Africa Due Diligence Platform: "Passport to Trade and Investment" and a  second webinar entitled  “Promoting Long-Term Finance (LTF) through Local Currency Bond Markets”.
 
Finally, if you have not done so already, we invite you to visit the recently launched Africa Long-Term Finance Initiative Website and Scoreboard. The website  aims to improve market intelligence through collecting data, operating a country comparison LTF Scoreboard, summarizing the data in regular reports on key findings, and providing in-depth country diagnostics.