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Financial Services as Infrastructure for Women’s Empowerment and Carbon Integrity

Women play a critical role in delivering carbon outcomes, yet they are often excluded from the benefits carbon projects create. This Focus Note argues that financial services are the infrastructure that enables women's empowerment while generating the evidence needed to verify gender co-benefits and strengthen carbon market integrity.

Opening the Black Box on the Impact of Inclusive Credit

Inclusive credit is one of the most celebrated and contested tools in development. This Focus Note reframes that debate. Rather than asking whether credit works, it asks: for which borrowers, through what product designs, and under what conditions does inclusive credit generate meaningful benefit rather than harm?

Inclusive Business in Action: Case Studies from ABERA Cohort 1 Financial and Agricultural Service Providers

This reading deck shares initial analyses conducted with five companies in the first cohort of ABERA (Accelerating Business to Empower Rural women in Agriculture). It offers a high-level view of the opportunities and innovations from financial and agricultural service providers and how tailored financial services add value for both rural women and for the service providers.

Pathways to Financial Inclusion for Young Women: Opportunities for Financial Service Providers and Funders

Based on research in Ghana and Tanzania, this Focus Note presents key opportunities for FSPs and funders to meet the real financial needs of young women aged 15-24.

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 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.

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.

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.

Gender Norms and Financial Regulation: The Case for Gender Lens Regulatory Analysis

To advance women’s financial inclusion, financial regulators must recognize that men and women experience the financial sector differently. This working paper provides a framework to assess how regulation can impact men and women differently. It aims to motivate regulators to move from gender-blind, to gender intentional approaches.

Advancing Women’s Financial Inclusion: Guidelines to Adopt a Gender Perspective in Financial Institutions

Addressing gender biases in financial products is crucial. Financial institutions should understand gender dynamics, build organizational capacity, and design inclusive products. This report offers ten guidelines for financial institutions to adopt a strategy that enhances the financial inclusion of women, recognizing them as a profitable yet underserved customer segment.