Searching: Research & Analysis

Diverse Paths: Finance for Women’s Nano and Micro Enterprises

Women-led nano and micro enterprises (WNMEs) are vital for providing livelihoods, boosting communities, and driving local economies. However, they face barriers like insufficient start-up capital and limited networking. This publication delves deeper the tailored solutions needed to support their growth based on in depth research in India, Kenya and Uganda.

Gender-Smart Market Mapping for Nano and Micro Enterprises: A Practical Guide

Segmentation and market sizing helps in allocating development efforts, guide investments, and identify policy gaps for women-led nano and micro enterprises (WNME). This technical guide offers steps to understand the WNME landscape, design targeted products, and foster inclusivity for growth.

Inclusive Fintech: How Startups are Bridging the Finance Gap for Microenterprises

This focus note features a range of case studies based on CGAP's research and highlights the potential and actual impacts of microenterprise fintech models.

Open Finance Self-Assessment Tool and Development Roadmap

This technical guide introduces the open finance self-assessment tool and development roadmap. It provides practical tools for policymakers to use to decide whether to implement an open finance regime to advance financial inclusion and outline a development roadmap to guide the implementation process.

A Technical Guide to Unlock Agent Networks at the Last Mile

This guide outlines five key actions for DFS providers, regulators, and funders to expand rural CICO agent networks based on CGAP's global experience. These actions include building a vision for rural expansion, optimizing investment strategies for rural agents, and capturing the potential of women agents. 

The Setup: Partnerships and Conditions for Offering Financial Services to Gig Workers

Platforms can offer financial services to underserved gig workers through digital channels, but it's essential to have the right environment for payments, regulations, and analysis. In this brief, early lessons share how institutional partnerships can lead to successful market entry.

Financial Services for Gig Workers: Lessons on Getting Design and Delivery Right

This brief highlights four examples of successful design and delivery methods employed by industry leaders in providing financial services to gig workers.

Global Landscape: Data Trails of Digitally Included Poor (DIP) People

Many low-income people generate rich data trails that are not being fully leveraged in the design and delivery of financial services. CGAP's reading deck puts a spotlight on the specific data trails generated by digitally included yet poor people, the sources of these data trails, and variations of data trails across different segmentations.

Young Women and Financial Services: Maximizing Impact

Research has shown that marginalized young women can benefit from financial services in both economic and non-economic ways. But with over half a billion women aged 15-24 in the world, the life stages, needs, and contexts of this population are tremendously diverse. Among which segments of young women could investments in improved financial services make the most impact? This infographic highlights findings from a recent CGAP segmentation exercise.

Agent Network Journeys Toward the Last Mile: A Cross-Country Perspective

CGAP's analysis reveals three distinct journeys country stakeholders have taken to extend the reach and quality of rural agent networks.