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> Posted by Center Staff
Blog posts. Twitter feeds. Facebook updates. Email listservs. Google Alerts. Lunchtime conversations… We all have our ways, however handy and effective, of trying to stay abreast of what’s happening around the world. For those interested in financial inclusion, this is quite the challenge. The release of new products, partnerships, publications, and policies is a constant. But at CFI’s Financial Inclusion 2020 (FI2020) project, combing the world for the latest inclusion insights, trends, and developments is part of what we do. So, we decided to go one step further.
Starting today, each week the FI2020 team will bring you the big news in financial inclusion in an online magazine, the Financial Inclusion 2020 News Feed. We’ll pull from all over to spotlight great new stories, initiatives, videos, podcasts, and more. To give you a sense, the collection of pieces that make up this week’s edition touch on:
- JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s new report on U.S. households’ financial resilience, Weathering Volatility
- AllAfrica’s recent article on the new partnership between Tigo and Juntos in Tanzania
- The Guardian’s interactive post that visualizes borrowing trends globally
- A World Bank video on assessing if microloans really make a difference
To check out the first edition, click here, and make sure to subscribe so you can be notified when the latest issue comes out.
Have you come across a story or initiative you think we should cover? Email your ideas to us at .
> Posted by Center Staff
Over the past year, financial inclusion leaders and advocates have bolstered airtime for banking the unbanked. In August, The Guardian launched a hub for financial inclusion content. In recent months, The New York Times produced an extensive reporting series on the consumer ills of the U.S. subprime auto loan market. In January, U.S. President Obama publicly commended and partnered with India in its robust inclusion efforts. Also in January, Bill Gates spoke about mobile money on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Today, The Wall Street Journal added its considerable weight with the launch of Multipliers of Prosperity, a micro-site sponsored by MetLife Foundation that explores the challenges faced in advancing financial inclusion.
> Posted by Center Staff
This week, The Guardian Global Development Professionals Network launched its Financial Inclusion hub, featuring stories, infographics, videos, and other resources on financial inclusion issues worldwide. The hub will be updated regularly over the coming months with original content. The first collection of posts includes:
- Using mobile money to buy water and solar power in East Africa
- Funeral insurance in South Africa: counting the cost of life and death
- Zimbabwe’s Econet Wireless and the making of Africa’s first cashless society
- An interactive map on ATMs worldwide
Guardian Professional Network hubs are community-focused sites, where The Guardian brings together advice, best practice, and insight from a range of professional communities. With this week’s launch, financial inclusion is sharing the stage among global development issues such as climate change, global health and nutrition, and urbanization, with the goal of promoting understanding, dialogue, and debate among those working in global development. CFI is a knowledge partner with The Guardian for the Financial Inclusion hub, sharing story and topic ideas and facilitating connections with editors.
Visit the hub at www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/financial-inclusion. You can join the conversation on Twitter using #NOunbanked
Have some ideas for issues and stories that should be investigated as part of the hub? Let us know in the comments.
> Posted by Joanna Ledgerwood, Senior Advisor, Access to Finance, Aga Khan Foundation
The following post was originally published in the Guardian Development Professionals Network DAI Partner Zone.
The microfinance industry has come under withering attack in recent years, pilloried among other things for its high interest rates and its coverage, which is often estimated to reach less than 10 percent of the population. But practitioners, the media, and the public should understand that microfinance is a broad term for a highly differentiated financial sector that is not without its successes. Each type of provider — from banks to savings groups — plays a particular role in providing the continuum of services typically needed to promote “financial inclusion” in underserved areas.
My recently published book, The New Microfinance Handbook: A Financial Market System Perspective, addresses the need to broaden microfinance’s reach to meet the diverse financial service needs of clients. For financial inclusion to increase, each type of institution must be deployed in the contexts in which it works best. Together, funders and governments must take a holistic, context-driven approach to improving financial services in poor areas — referred to as the market systems approach. While the commercialization of microfinance has had its successes, we need to consider the entire system, especially community-based providers, if we are to reach the rural poor with appropriate financial services.
The Mountain Societies Development Support Programme (MSDSP), an NGO set up and supported by the Aga Khan Foundation in Tajikistan, is a good example of a market systems approach where a variety of financial initiatives work collaboratively. Launched as a relief and humanitarian initiative, MSDSP transitioned to become a development organization, promoting good governance and local economic development. Recognizing that the legacy of distrust in the formal financial sector has been particularly damaging to people living in mountainous areas — already subject to isolation, marginalization, and deep poverty — MSDSP aims to address the lack of accessible financial services.
In the remote rural areas where MSDSP works, community-based savings groups (CBSGs) are at the heart of a successful effort to bring financial services to the poor, supported by a broad spectrum of financial and social institutions. Based on tested models in Africa and South Asia, CBSGs are simple savings and borrowing associations. Under the direction of elected leaders, groups of 15 to 25 members gather biweekly to manage their financial activities. After two months of training followed by approximately seven months of close supervision, CBSGs continue to operate, without external support, for many years. Members access loans and pay interest of about three percent per month, and all interest received contributes to increasing the loan fund which is periodically, usually annually, distributed back to members. No external capital is required, making CBSGs transparent and profitable for the members.
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