Dyeing factory Fez, Morocco | Photo by Ihab Fayad, 2017 CGAP Photo Contest Photo by Ihab Fayad, 2017 CGAP Photo Contest

Trends in International Funding for Financial Inclusion

Donors and investors need to continue thinking about and adapting their roles in an increasingly complex financial inclusion landscape. Knowing who is funding what, and where, is a good starting point. It can help funders make informed decisions on funding allocation, improve coordination among funders, and shed light on when and how to adjust their efforts to meet targeted objectives.

The CGAP Cross-Border Funder Survey provides data on the funding flows for financial inclusion, based on the premise that better information leads to better funding decisions. Conducted annually since 2008, with the latest edition implemented in partnership with Tameo Impact Fund Solutions, it alternates between surveying a full set and a smaller set of the largest international financial inclusion funders.

For 2021, CGAP collected data from the survey’s full set (51 funders), comprising $43.9 billion in commitments. To enable comparability of data over time, year-over-year analysis outside the global estimate is based on a subset of the 31 funders who have consistently participated, and who represented $41.2 billion of commitments in 2021. The CGAP Funder Survey is the most comprehensive resource available on international funding for microfinance and financial inclusion.

2021 Data

Publication

CGAP’s annual Funder Survey breaks down financial inclusion funding data to offer new intelligence about who’s doing what and where—insights that could be used to inform future development programming and coordination, to ultimately impact the lives of people living in poverty.
Data

The Funding Explorer is a set of seven interactive dashboards reflecting active international financial inclusion funding commitments as of December 31, 2021. The Explorer uses data from the CGAP Funder Survey complemented by publicly available contextual indicators.  
Data

These data snapshots were generated from the 2021 CGAP Funder Survey and they may be browsed online or downloaded to share and use in your own presentations
Blog

Transparency around funding for financial inclusion is critical to effective funder decision-making and coordination, and broader impact. Drawing on findings from our latest Funder Survey, we share five opportunities to improve transparency.

2020 Data

Publication

International funders committed approximately US$58 billion to financial inclusion in 2020, a $6 billion increase from the prior year. Commitments from public funders continued to drive growth.
Data

The Funding Explorer contains 5 interactive dashboards that reflect active international financial inclusion funding commitments as of December 31, 2020.
Data

Data snapshots are available at the global and regional levels. The 2020 CGAP Funder Survey analyzes funding commitments from international funders as of the end of 2020.

2019 Data

Publication

International funders committed approximately US$52 billion to financial inclusion in 2019, a 12 percent increase from the US$46 billion reported in 2018.
Data

The Funding Explorer is a set of highly interactive analytical dashboards. This tool uses data from the CGAP Funder Survey complemented by publicly available contextual indicators
Data

Data snapshots are available at the global and regional levels. The 2019 CGAP Funder Survey reports funding commitments from 54 international funders, both public and private, as of the end of 2019.
Blog Series

For more than a decade, the CGAP Annual Cross-Border Funder Survey has tracked and reported on international funding commitments for financial inclusion. Each year’s data reveals specific themes worthy of further analysis and emerging priorities for the sector. The posts in this

2018 Data

Publication

International funding increased by 12 percent in 2018 to approximately US$47 billion, a trend that has been consistent over the past five years. A third of international funders have been purposefully aligning their financial inclusion efforts to the achievement of SDGs.
Data

An interactive analytical dashboard where users can create specific queries from that data. The explorer uses CGAP Funder Survey data complemented by publicly available contextual indicators.
Data

Data snapshots are available at the global and regional levels and represent funding commitments from 23 international public and private funders.