Staff Directory

Antonique Koning

Senior Financial Sector Specialist

Antonique Koning leads CGAP’s work on Women’s Economic Empowerment through financial inclusion and manages the Access to Insurance Initiative (A2ii) convened by CGAP. She has more than 25 years of experience working on inclusive finance and has expertise in gender norms affecting women’s financial inclusion, young women’s financial inclusion, responsible finance and customer centricity.  Antonique also led CGAP’s work on customer outcomes-based approaches to consumer protection regulation and supervision, and  contributed to guidance on customer empowerment and employee and agent empowerment for CGAP’s Customer Centric Guide for which she authored a case study on Pioneer Microinsurance.  

Before joining CGAP in 2004, Antonique gained hands-on experience developing and implementing microcredit programs in El Salvador and working with savings banks globally. 

She has a Master’s degree in International Trade Management and Policy from the University of Birmingham, and a Master’s degree in Applied Economics from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Antonique is based in Belgium, and speaks Spanish, French, and Dutch.

By Antonique Koning

Blog

Unlocking Invisible Barriers to Women’s Inclusion in East Africa

Invisible gender norms shape how everyone in the financial system behaves. CGAP & FSD Network research in Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda shows that making finance work for women means understanding those norms and how to intervene to change market actor behavior.
Research

From Insights to Interventions: Addressing Gender Norms in Women’s Financial Inclusion

CGAP’s Design Guide introduces a structured, field-tested approach to uncover how gender norms shape market actor behavior, to help development actors move beyond symptoms to address the root causes of women’s financial exclusion.
Research

Diagnosing Gender Norms in the Financial Market System: A Practical Guide

CGAP’s Diagnostic Guide helps development actors move beyond symptoms to address the root causes of women’s financial exclusion. This guide introduces a structured, field-tested approach to uncover how gender norms shape market actor behavior and offers practitioners a powerful set of tools for examining norms-driven constraints and identifying high impact intervention points.
Research

Invisible Barriers: How Gender Norms Impact Financial Inclusion

Gender norms shape the behavior of financial service providers, regulators, and communities, often limiting women’s access to and use of financial services. This Focus Note presents a practical framework, based on diagnostics in Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, that classifies gender norms by their strength and prevalence and proposes tailored strategies for addressing them.
Blog

Supplying What the Market Won’t: Donors and Young Women’s Inclusion

Young women across Africa are one of the most underserved markets for financial services. Donors can step in by strategically supporting services the market isn't likely to provide but are key to increasing young women's financial inclusion.