Nearly 2.5 billion people do not have access to formal financial services. While entrepreneurs and investors have focused on products and services for the unbanked, development practitioners are working to re-create ecosystems for men and women worldwide. We’ll explore new opportunities for full financial inclusion, including how marginalized individuals can leverage rapid advances in technology, new financial literacy and new digital business models. We will also investigate existing efforts for economic inclusion, such as conditional cash transfers and the microcredit revolution.
Delivering economic empowerment and financial inclusion to people in underdeveloped countries could fuel improvements across development goals. But there is no one-size-fits-all solution for this potential cure-all. Devex speaks to Eileen Hoffman, director of the economic growth and trade practice at Chemonics, about what development practitioners should focus on in projects to deliver economic empowerment.
Here are two simple facts facing the development world today. One: It is very expensive being poor. Period. Two: For all the tech innovation and mobile money in the world, billions in extreme poverty are still dealing everyday with the “curse of the empty purse.”
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Progress toward greater financial and social equality is under threat in parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia and this could jeopardize the region’s ability to meet the Sustainable Development Goals which calls for reduced inequality within and between countries.
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Mobile has the power to transform lives. It can reduce poverty and provide people with access to services such as health care, education and financial services, often for the first time. In this guest column, GSMA’s Yasmina McCarty offers some key areas where mobile money drives empowerment and financial inclusion.
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