Alia Développement provides feasibility studies, market surveys, project evaluations, advisory and training services in the domain of financial inclusion. It brings together three consultants with complementary expertise: Nathalie Assouline, Franz Le Leslé and Laurent Lhériau, who are based in France and work mainly in Africa.
Our experience in the fields of financial inclusion is long and diverse: microfinance, banking and digital finance, regulation, AML-CFT, financing of VSEs / SMEs, agricultural finance, financial education, client protection, governance of institutions, strategies for financial inclusion. We work with financial institutions (microfinance, digital financial service providers, postal financial services and banks). We advise public decision makers and development agencies in the evaluation and formulation of financial inclusion, microfinance, agricultural finance or SME finance programs and policies. We also support the authorities in the review of the regulatory framework and the exercise of supervision of financial institutions.
Our expertise combines a long field practice with financial inclusion players and an ability to intervene also at strategic and political levels. Some of us have held leadership responsibilities in microfinance and banking institutions. We thus have operational knowledge of financial inclusion and organizational dynamics. To this field competence we add an in-depth knowledge of the socio-economic environment, target populations, markets, political dynamics, legal and regulatory frameworks and actors of inclusive finance, mainly in French-speaking Africa. It is the sum of this experience that allows us to offer appropriate solutions to donors, supervisors and governments.
An overview of the type of missions carried out in recent years:
- support for the formulation of inclusive finance strategies (Guinea, Senegal, Morocco, Madagascar, Benin, Togo, Mauritania, Burundi, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, WAEMU area…),
- missions in responsible finance (CEMAC consumer protection regulations, Côte d’Ivoire financial education strategy, etc.),
- formulation of national microfinance sector consolidation plans,
- reviews of development agencies’ microfinance project portfolios,
- studies and assessments of financial markets and of SME finance (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti …),
- numerous project evaluations including in agricultural finance in the Maghreb, Western and Central Africa,
- support for improving credit information (WAEMU, CEMAC, Djibouti, etc.),
- participation in several financial sector assessment programs (Algeria, Lebanon, Mauritania, DRC, etc.),
- reforms of the legislative and regulatory frameworks of inclusive finance (Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Haiti, Madagascar, DRC …),
- support for the establishment of risk-based supervision (supervisors from Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Haiti, Madagascar, Niger, Tunisia, etc.): prudential aspects, AML-CFT; in some cases extended to consumer protection,
- support for the AML-CFT compliance of banks and microfinance institutions (Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Guinea, Madagascar, Morocco, DRC, etc.).
Our main clients are development agencies – AFD, World Bank Group, UNCDF, CGAP, GIZ and KfW, EU, AfDB, DFID, etc. – as well as governments and supervisory authorities.