CGAP, in partnership with Cenfri and with support from SECO,  presented a two-part webinar series focused on surfacing and dissecting practical solutions to addressing the gap in women’s financial inclusion in Africa. 

After deepening our understanding of the financial inclusion gender gaps in Ghana and Africa more broadly in our first webinar, we made things practical in a second webinar focusing on how providers can better serve female customers. With a distinguished panel representing financial service providers from across the continent, we unpacked the benefits and challenges involved in various approaches to better understanding and serving female customers, with an emphasis on the collection and use of data. In interactive breakout groups, we used what we’ve learned about various female segments in the first webinar to discuss low-hanging fruits and practical next steps.

Speakers
Chernay Johnson, Engagement Manager, Cenfri
Chernay Johnson is an engagement manager in the Digital World team of Cenfri. She concurrently serves as a Governance Committee Member of the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) in a non-remunerative capacity. Prior to joining Cenfri, Chernay worked as a professional economist at the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), Credit Suisse Securities, and spent time consulting on a strategic capital-markets project as a visiting researcher to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre (CMCRC) in Sydney. In recognition of her impactful economic research on sub-Saharan Africa, the Financial Mail ranked her as one of the top three young analysts in South Africa in 2016.

Sandra Orgu, Partnerships Manager, W Initiative, Access Bank, Nigeria
Sandra Orgu is the partnerships manager for the W Initiative, Access Bank Nigeria. The W initiative is a blend of existing banking products and services bundled to effectively meet the present-day financial and lifestyle needs of women in identified sub-segments, as well as provide them with a complete and rewarding banking experience. Ms. Orgu also has a background in public relations and journalism.

Carmia Norton, Head of Customer Success, JUMO, South Africa
Carmia Lureman-Norton is a customer experience professional (CCXP) who works with high-growth businesses to build customer capabilities for scale. She has over 10 years’ experience building customer-centered competencies and operations in some of South Africa’s most successful scale-ups. Carmia developed the CRM programmes, customer support and experience operations for leading brands across diverse industries, including finance and retail. Having experienced first-hand the ability of tech-enabled businesses to rapidly build and grow solutions to societal problems, she’s excited about the opportunities at JUMO to reimagine the delivery of financial services in challenging customer contexts.

Steve Shema, CEO, Exuus, Rwanda
Steve Shema is the founder and CEO of Exuus Ltd. As the CEO of Exuus, Shema coordinated the first ever countrywide survey on saving groups also known as VSLAs (Village Savings and Loan Associations) in Rwanda in partnership with the Central Bank (BNR), the Ministry of Finance and Access to Finance Rwanda. The findings of the survey informed the creation of SAVE, a digital platform for saving groups which provides a digital and decentralized ledger to SGs members. SAVE is currently being used by over 35,000 users in Rwanda and averaging more than $10,000 in monthly savings. Currently, Steve is busy working on scaling-up SAVE in Rwanda and beyond with a target to hit 1 million saving groups by 2023 across the sub-Saharan Africa.

Emmanuel Akin-Awokoya, CEO, InvestXD, Ghana
Emmanuel Akin-Awokoya, the co-founder of InvestXD/Noni, is dedicated to building technology that promotes financial inclusion, Internet accessibility, improved educational opportunities, and economic wealth. Selected as a “Top 50 Innovators” at the 2018 African Innovation Summit, he is a graduate of the MEST Africa accelerator program for tech entrepreneurs and has an extensive background in telecommunications and engineering, including work with MTN Nigeria and Huawei Technology Limited. He is a member of Multinational Internet and Telecommunication organizations such as ICANN, ISOC, IETF, CTO, and IEEE and contributes to the standardization of the Internet. InvestXD won the second edition of the Data4FI Hackathon.