include a detailed, time-bound, and budgeted action plan. Adopting a possibilities-based approach that balances ambition with obstacles and risks would require governments to recognize that they must make choices and that each choice has consequences.

# **3. Stylized Facts**

For countries, the national financial sector strategy formulates the policy for the financial sector. However, in our sample, only 29 countries out of the 78 countries (37 percent) have a financial sector strategy. Most of the national strategies appear in Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia, while only one country in Latin America and the Caribbean in our sample has one. In the 29 countries, the financial sector strategy was used as the only data source. In six countries, the national development strategy was used as the data source if it contained sections on financial sector development. The financial inclusion strategy was used for two countries as the data source while the annual reports or strategies of central banks and financial sector supervisors were used for 13 countries—provided they contained sections on financial sector development (not only on the development of the institution). If the financial sector strategy was not available, we used the financial stability report as a complementary source to the national development strategy—together with central banks’ or superintendence annual reports or strategies—and the financial inclusion strategy as available. The financial stability report was used as the only data source, if none of the other documents were available.<sup>9</sup> In total, the financial stability report was used in 36 countries. The summary statistics on the data sources for our assessment of strategies are presented in table 5 **.**

**Table 5: Summary Statistics on the Data Sources for Our Review of National Financial Sector Strategies**

|**_Countries T_**<br>**_De_**<br>|**_hat Have a Fina_**<br>**_velopment Strat_**<br>|**_ncial Sector_**<br>**_egy_**<br>|**_Countries That Have the Type of R_**|**_eport Defi_**|**_ned_**<br>|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**World Bank**<br>**Region**|**Counties**<br>**with FSDS**|**No. of**<br>**Countries**|**Type of Report**|**No. of**<br>**Docs.**|**No. of**<br>**Docs.**|
|Africa|9|10||**Found**|**Used**|
|East Asia|6|10|Financial sector development strategy|29|29|
|ECA|4|19|National development plan<sup>b</sup>|38|6|
|LAC|1|11||||
|MENA|4|10|Financial stability report|56|36|
|South Asia|4|8|Central bank, superintendence strategy,|13|13|
|Other OECD<sup>a</sup>|1|10|or annual report|||
|**Total**|**29**|**78**|Financial inclusion strategy|2|2|

_Source:_ Authors’ review of selected national financial sector strategies.

> _Note_ : FSDS = financial sector development strategy; OECD = Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; ECA = Eastern Europe and Central Asia; LAC = Latin America and the Caribbean; MENA = Middle East and North Africa.

> 9 Note that we do not rate strategies only 0/1; that is, a country does not or does have a strategy. We consider available relevant policy documents that could form a country’s financial sector strategy and based on those, we rate the country on a scale from 0 to 10 along the 10 criteria presented.

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