Workshop celebrating the African Telecom Day
Under the slogan Enhancing and enabling financial inclusion through information and communication technology
On Thursday, 8 December 2022, a the Great Hall of the Communications Tower, a (workshop on promoting and enabling financial inclusion) was held under the slogan: (Promoting and enabling financial inclusion through information and communication technology), organized within the framework of celebrating the African Telecommunications Day and under the auspices and supervision of the Minister of Communications and Digital Transformation, Mr. Adel Hassan Muhammad Al-Hussein, attended by the Director General of the Telecommunications and Postal Regulatory Authority, consultant engineer Dr. Al-Sadiq Jamal Al-Din, and a distinguished number of experts, specialists, and interested participants of more than 100 representing all partners:
Mr. Director General of the National Information Center, Consultant Engineer Youssef Al-Taher Sharaf Al-Din
Major General Yasser Mubarak Police Director of the Civil Registry
Representatives of telecommunications companies
Staff members from departments of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Transformations
Representatives of the Bank of Sudan
Representatives of banks
Representatives of the Families Support Project (Thamrat)
Trade Union
Banks Union
Nile Center for Technical Research
Representatives of private sector companies working in the field of financial inclusion
The workshop aims to bring together stakeholders and discuss issues related to financial inclusion, identify the problems and challenges to the process of financial inclusion, as well as come up with clear recommendations and identify relevant authorities that will follow up on those recommendations.
The inaugural session commenced with the Holy Qur’an, then the Director General of the Telecommunications and Postal Regulatory Authority, Dr. Sadiq Gamal El-Din welcomed the audience and briefed them on the celebration of the African Day. this year’s slogan aims to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals. He talked about infrastructure and how it changed the lives of societies.
A special session on the papers was held under the chairmanship of Dr. Ezz El-Din Kamel Amin, who spoke at the beginning of the World Bank’s definition of financial inclusion, followed by the presenters of the papers, which are four papers detailed below:ءؤئ
A paper on financial inclusion, presented by Engineer Suleiman Mahmoud – Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, whose paper dealt with an introduction to financial inclusion and touched on the concept of financial inclusion, its importance, requirements and principles for applying financial inclusion and reflected a number of recommendations.
A paper on the role of the communications and information technology sector in promoting financial inclusion, presented by Dr. Yahya Abdullah, representing the Ministry of Communications and Digital Transformation. and digital transformation, as well as the current situation of the telecommunications and information technology sector, the opportunities and challenges to this sector and the most important recommendations.
A paper on the role of telecommunications companies in financial inclusion, which was presented by Eng. Youssef Abbas, representing the companies operating the telecommunications sector, whose paper dealt with the role played by those companies in the success of financial inclusion in the country, as these companies are among the most important pillars of the success of this sector.
A paper on the role of the private sector and banks on financial inclusion, presented by Eng. Omar Hassan Amrabi as an expert in this field. This paper discussed major challenges and focused more on recommendations divided into a number of levels: (government, banks, telecommunications companies and the private sector).
The workshop continued with a panel discussion chaired by Dr. Ezz El-Din Kamel Amin and with the participation of (Dr. Yahya Abdullah, representative of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Transformation, Dr. Suleiman Mahmoud, representative of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Ms. Hamida Mohamed Salih, representative of the Central Bank of Sudan, Eng. Omar Hassan Amrabi, an expert in this field and Eng. Shehab Saleh (Director of MTN Fintech) where during that session a number of questions were asked to the participants, whose responses were based on the experiences of the entities they represent and their future visions for promoting and enabling financial inclusion.
Then, the audience was given the opportunity to deliberate, comment and ask their questions centered on concerns, challenges, and proposals for solutions to financial inclusion.
The workshop came out with a number of recommendations divided according to the authorities concerned with the issue of financial inclusion, on. a number of areas such as developing strategies for financial inclusion, laws and regulatory frameworks to keep pace with the rapidly developing technology, training and qualifying human cadres, political support for the process of financial inclusion, …..), these recommendations will be classified and revised, and the parties entrusted with their implementation will be identified.