Financial inclusion is still a challenge for Mozambique since most of the population is outside the process, although some progress has already been made, according to the Executive Director of the Financial Sector Deepening Mozambique (FSDMoç), Esselina Macome.

"We see that there is a level of reduction in financial exclusion, but there is still work to be done," Macome said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Novafrica-2022 Conference on Economic Development, held a few days ago in the municipality of Cascais, Portugal, the official explained that the percentage of Mozambicans who are outside the financial system has fallen from 60% in 2014 to 46% in 2019, which still puts the country in one of the worst positions in the southern African region.

The official, who is also a professor at Eduardo Mondlane University, recalled that the government launched, in 2016, a national strategy for financial inclusion, whose first phase ends this year, but admitted that there is a lack of concrete data on the impact that this form has on reducing poverty.

"It is a question that we ourselves are looking for an answer to. For us financial inclusion only makes sense if it impacts people's quality of life, i.e. lifting them out of poverty," said Macome.

He added that "but what we feel is that we don't have instruments of measurement, of saying that we did this and it contributed in the reduction of poverty at this level. It is in this context that FSDMoç has just launched a tender for a study to evaluate this relationship."

Macome stressed that the program sees financial inclusion in a holistic way, which includes a focus on education, but also on working with financial institutions to adapt their products to the market.