Making financial services meet the needs of the world’s most vulnerable
People living in poverty constantly juggle an evolving set of risks and crises in their daily lives. Climate change, the pandemic, and the ongoing food crisis, among others, have increased these risks substantially, contributing to a rise in global poverty and inequality. Meanwhile, a third of the world’s adult population lacks the financial services they could use to significantly improve their lives. CGAP is working to change this, and we believe that positive trends in inclusive finance offer hope for a green, resilient, and inclusive future.
In this Focus Note, CGAP calls for financial inclusion to be a cornerstone of action on climate adaptation, and proposes a new agenda for collaboration between financial inclusion and climate adaptation practitioners.
Financial inclusion is essential to creating more inclusive, resilient, and green futures. But to deliver on its promise, we must go beyond access to financial accounts and focus on maximizing the impact of inclusive finance.
Digitization has brought both hope and frustration to the microfinance industry. To address this, we identified and tested five core principles for successful implementation. This focus note summarizes our experience, evaluates the validity of the five principles, and offers key lessons learned for other industry stakeholders to adopt and scale a similar approach.
Brazil's rapid expansion of open finance shows its potential to transform financial services, and recent CGAP research offers valuable insights into Brazil, as well as other markets interested in implementing open finance.
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Market conduct supervisors (MCSs) charged with protecting consumers of financial products and services place great value on identifying, understanding, and tracking industry developments and market-level consumer risks and consumer behavior—the activities collectively known as market monitoring.
The Financial Inclusion Navigator is a participatory review process for funders of financial inclusion, facilitated by CGAP as a neutral external party. It is designed to generate insights into how funder operations advance financial inclusion effectively in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the complex and fast-evolving markets in which they intervene.
Across emerging markets, millions of informal workers are joining gig platforms in sectors like ride-hailing and deliveries. CGAP’s engagement with platforms, fintechs and gig workers offers a glimpse into what the future could look like.
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