Recent Blogs
Regulating Savings Groups: Only a Proportionate Approach Will Work
Savings groups offer vital, community-run savings and loans, thriving even in fragile contexts. But rising government regulation in some countries risks harming them unless policies remain proportionate and risk-based.
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.
Unpacking Effects of Gender Norms on Women's Financial Lives in Uganda
How do gender norms impact not just women’s behavior, but the behavior of all market actors in the financial system? Recent findings from Uganda offer some insights.
Driving Change: Hello Tractor and ABERA
CGAP, IDH, FSD Network & FSD Kenya are working with Hello Tractor as part of ABERA, which empowers rural women in agriculture. We aim to address gender and climate challenges while strengthening Hello Tractor's business and financial service links.
Good News for Young Women’s Financial Inclusion in East Africa
Young women in East Africa are demanding and using financial services earlier and faster than a decade ago, according to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation analysis of Findex 2021 and 2011 data. The second blog in our series unpacks these findings.
Regular Savings from Irregular Income: How Platforms Can Help
CGAP partnered with fintechs and platforms across Sub-Saharan Africa to understand how they are using digital rails to offer savings products to low-income gig workers. Here, we share what we found.
How are Mobile Money Agents Protecting Customers’ Data in Uganda?
Recent qualitative research in Uganda conducted by CGAP and MicroSave Consulting (MSC) identified good practices for responsible agents in safeguarding their customers’ data and the role that providers can play in promoting these practices.
Flipping the Switch: How Locking Assets Unlocks Credit for the Poor
A new study out of Uganda offers strong evidence that lock-out technology can enable providers to sustainably lend to low-income customers, who may need credit for school fees and other critical expenses.
In Uganda, Solar Home Systems Help Students Stay in School
A pay-as-you-go (PAYGo) solar provider in Uganda is proving that an often-overlooked benefit of PAYGo – financial inclusion – can also affect education outcomes by keeping kids in the classroom.
The Path to Financial Health Begins in Adolescence
It is critical that youth financial inclusion programs tailor interventions based on young people's life stage to achieve long-term impact on financial health.
8 Lessons from Using a Messaging Platform to Support Digital Payments
Here are eight insights on how to use messaging platforms to increase financial literacy among smallholders.
MTN Uganda Opens Up Mobile Money APIs
Uganda's largest telco just opened APIs that enable local developers to build apps that leverage its popular mobile money platform. Here are some lessons learned from MTN Uganda's open APIs journey so far.
Off-Grid Solar Company Helping Customers Pay School Fees
In Africa, some of the most innovative ideas in education financing are coming from an unlikely source - an off-grid solar company.
Bank-Led Digital Finance: Who’s Really Leading?
In countries where regulators favor “bank-led” digital finance models, nonbanks are playing important – even dominant – roles in digital finance.
East African Interoperability: Dispatches from the Home of M-Pesa
Kenyans can now send money between the country's two largest digital wallet services, Airtel and M-Pesa, the latest step toward interoperability in East Africa.
5 Insights into Credit Scoring for Smallholders
Agricultural lending remains a frontier area even as the alternative lending space fills up with new players. Here are some early insights from CGAP's work on alternative credit scoring for smallholder farmers in Uganda.
FinTech Partnerships: Choose Carefully, Then Evolve
FinTech startups in developing markets are leveraging partnerships to reach customers as diverse as women's savings groups, dairy cooperatives and smallholder farmers.
FinTech for the Poor: Not All Virtual, Not All Apps
FinTech isn't always about rolling out a dazzling new smartphone app. In places where USSD phones are the norm, it means something quite different.
Can Uganda Reduce Financial Exclusion to 5% in 5 Years?
Here's what you need to know about Uganda's new financial inclusion strategy, which aims to cut financial exclusion from 15 to 5 percent by 2022.