Searching: Research & Analysis

Inclusive Pensions for an Aging World: Evidence and Strategies for Engaging Informal Workers

This Working Paper reviews how different countries have designed pension schemes for informal workers. It focuses on contributory schemes for the “missing middle”: informal workers with sufficiently stable incomes to save for old age but who lack access to suitable pension options.

Building Rural Women’s Climate Resilience: Seven Business Drivers Delivering Commercial Value

As climate pressures rise, strengthening rural women’s resilience is critical for their livelihoods and for the long-term viability of the rural businesses that serve them. Through ABERA (Accelerating Business to Empower Rural Women in Agriculture), a CGAP and IDH collaboration, this paper identifies seven practical business drivers that simultaneously strengthen rural women’s climate resilience and business performance.

From Safety Net to Springboard

As climate risks intensify, there is an urgent need to better support low-income communities to adapt and build resilience. This paper highlights an untapped opportunity hiding in plain sight - integrating financial services into social protection programs – and outlines five priorities for funders, policymakers, and social protection professionals to unlock its potential.

Enhancing Food Security through Finance-Enabled Food Systems Transformation

This working paper examines how inclusive finance can address today's evolving food security challenges by unlocking targeted investments in high-impact agricultural value chains that best promote nutritional, sustainability, and livelihood outcomes through agricultural technology (AgTech) adoption.

How Can We Improve Resilience Globally? Leading Experts Weigh In

In June 2025, CGAP convened nearly 200 global decisionmakers in Amsterdam involved in global resilience responses for a Symposium titled, “Rethinking Resilience: Why Inclusive Finance Can’t Wait”. In this bonus episode of Inclusive Finance Frontiers, hear from participants interviewed on the sidelines of the Symposium on how inclusive finance tools—such as savings, credit, insurance, and digital payments—can strengthen resilience for those most at risk and drive sustainable development.

Inclusive Insurance: Scaling for Resilience and Impact

Insurance builds resilience by helping people manage shocks and invest confidently in their futures. Yet, inclusive insurance remains small-scale due to barriers in demand, supply, and policy. This deck explores challenges and opportunities—showing how funders can unlock insurance’s full potential as a catalyst for stability, security, and economic growth.

Resilience for All: Why Inclusive Finance Can't Wait

The world faces urgent challenges as risks intensify and interconnect, amplifying vulnerabilities, especially for low-income populations and small and medium enterprises (MSEs). If left unaddressed, these vulnerabilities can create ripple effects with national, regional, and global consequences. This paper highlights the importance of inclusive finance as an indispensable component of resilience responses, and calls on everyone working on increasing resilience to leverage inclusive finance to enhance the reach, speed, and impact of their work.

Strengthening Financial Systems for Climate Adaptation

As climate-related shocks become more frequent, communities need access to finance that helps them cope with and recover from damage and loss, yet current efforts to strengthen financial systems’ resilience often overlook the importance of inclusion. This paper outlines how governments and funders can foster inclusive financial systems that enhance climate adaptation and resilience.

Six Big Ideas: How Financial Services Can Improve Social Protection Delivery

Cash transfers are among the most effective tools for social protection but delivering them in fragile contexts remains a major challenge due to interruptions in financial sector development efforts, limited government capacity, and difficulties reaching remote communities. This paper presents ways that social protection funders can invest to achieve outcomes for both programs and recipients.

Building Climate Resilience at Scale in the Sahel

Already reaching over half the world’s population, social protection systems present an untapped opportunity to channel climate funds to help vulnerable communities adapt to climate change, enhancing the reach, efficiency, and impact of climate finance.