Mr Bill Gates and Other Experts to Speak on Digital Financial Inclusion and Inclusive Growth

Media Advisory for September 24, 2013 Invitation to Media

Contact: megan.verardi@fleishman.com, O: 415-318-4103 M: 209-304-3272

What: Partnerships for Digital Financial Inclusion – a Driver of Inclusive Growth

Today 2.5 billion adults are excluded from the formal financial services sector. Yet governments, the development community and the private sector make billions of dollars in cash payments to people in emerging economies, many of them poor and financially excluded. Shifting these salaries, pensions, social welfare stipends and emergency relief payments from cash to electronic has the potential to improve the livelihoods of low-income people by advancing financial inclusion and helping people save.

During the upcoming United Nations General Assembly, UNDP, UNCDF and the Better Than Cash Alliance are hosting an event on how partnerships between governments, private sector and development organizations are helping to promote inclusive growth. It will focus on how digital payments can catalyze financial inclusion, and as a result, can be a driver of inclusive growth and development.

WHEN: Tuesday, September 24, 2013

TIME: 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.

LOCATION: UN Secretariat Building South Dining Room, 4th Floor 405 East 42nd Street, NY, NY

Speakers:

• Ms. Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator
• Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, UNSGSA for Inclusive Finance for Development
• Hon. Ralph Jooma, M.P., Minister of Economic Planning and Development, Republic of Malawi
• Mr. Bill Gates, Co-Chair, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• His Excellency Jose L. Cuisia Jr., Ambassador of the Republic of the Philippines to the United States of America
• Mr. Paolo Eugenio Baltao, President, G-Xchange, Inc.
• Mr. Marc Bichler, Executive Secretary, UNCDF

This is event is taking place inside the United Nations General Assembly, therefore media attendees must be in possession of UNGA credentials. Media please send RSVP to BetterThanCashAlliance@fleishman.com and note if you are or are not credentialed.