Denny H Kalyalya: Sustainable finance - savings are globally diverse, we are united in responsibility Speech by Dr Denny H Kalyalya, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the World Savings Day and Financial Literacy Awards, 4 November 2022. *** SALUTATIONS Mr. Phillip Chitalu, Secretary and Chief Executive Officer, Securities and Exchange Commission Mrs. Namakau Ntini, Acting Registrar, Pensions and Insurance Authority Mr. Markus Wittkamp All Senior Government officials Mrs Mizinga Melu – Chairperson Financial Literacy Working Group and BAZ All Chief Executive Officers of Financial Services Providers All Cooperating partners Nominated Participants for the Financial Literacy Awards Invited Guests Ladies and Gentlemen Good afternoon, It is an honor for me as Champion of financial education, to engage with you during the public awareness campaign for the 2022 World Savings Day and the Financial Literacy Awards ceremony. This year's theme focuses on preparing for the future, continuing with the 2021 theme "Sustainable Finance: Savings are globally diverse, we are united in responsibility." Sustainable finance involves taking due account of environmental, social and governance considerations when making investment decisions. This is pertinent considering the threat environmental risks are increasingly presenting to the economy. It is therefore expected that efforts to promote sustainable finance will contribute to the attainment of a climate resilient economy. The recently launched 8th National Development Plan also supports a low carbon and climate- resilient development pathway towards attainment of Vision 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.
For a more detailed analysis, see Banco de España (2020), “Recent developments in the most important Latin American banking systems for Spanish banks”, Box 2, “Report on the Latin American economy. Second half of 2020”, Analytical Articles, Economic Bulletin, 4/2020. 8 For a stress test analysis of the 61 largest banks in Latin America, see Annex 4 of the IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook (2020), Pandemic Persistence Clouds the Recovery. 9 See A. Werner, A. Ivanova and T. Komatsuzaki (2021), Latin America and Caribbean’s Winding Road to Recovery, IMF blog. 5  First, in addition to the human cost in lives, the effects on poverty and income distribution have been very severe.10 Indeed, during 2019, bouts of political tensions and social unrest in several countries, partly related to this situation, fuelled economic uncertainty; this in a region where numerous elections are due to take place in the coming quarters. A second challenge is that posed by shrinking fiscal space following the increase in government debt in the region during 2020, positioning it as the emerging region with the highest government debt-to-GDP ratio and, where debt refinancing is concerned, leaving it highly vulnerable to changes in investor sentiment. Against this background, monetary policy is supported by the accommodative policies of the main developed economies and by low inflationary pressures.