Whether it is digital payments, resilience for MSMEs or financial integrity, much of our work is underpinned by the desire to create more inclusive financial systems and services. Cenfri has successfully implemented several multi-year financial inclusion programmes:
Making Access to Financial Services Possible or MAP (in partnership with UNCDF and FinMark Trust)
insight2impact or i2i (in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Mastercard Foundation)
Risk, Remittances and Integrity or RRI (with FSD Africa)
Remittance Access Initiative (with IFAD’s Financing Facility for Remittances)
Our view is that while financial inclusion targets (such as the percentage of adults with a bank account) are valid, they don’t tell you much when tracked in isolation. It is important to understand whether people use their financial services, and if so, whether this enables them to meet their needs. We have developed six financial inclusion measurement frameworks that outline this expanded understanding of financial inclusion.
Thoughts from the first event in the #DataHacks4FI meet-up series in Nairobi In Kenya, agriculture is the second largest contributor to GDP and the largest supporter of livelihoods. 75% of the labour force in Kenya is employed in agriculture and 33% of all adults derive their main source of income
Building mutually beneficial financial inclusion communities through data The first language that l was exposed to as a child was Sotho/Tswana. My maternal grandfather had this saying as one of his favourites, “Noka etlatswa ke dinokana”, meaning “a river gets full through its tributaries for it to flow yearlong”. This
The business of insurance is hard. Microinsurance delivery has proven to be nearly impossible. Despite almost two decades of focus on the under and uninsured, microinsurance reaches just under 300 million people across the developing world. This is only around 10% of the potential market for insurance. While promising examples
The 2017 budget, unveiled by the Minister of Finance Honourable Felix Mutati in Zambia earlier this month incorporates new austerity measures but has incorporated significant increases in social welfare benefits. . However, restricted liquidity conditions in the Zambian economy have significantly impacted access to capital and finance, hindering the expansion
Your alarm goes off. It’s 3am on the last Friday of the month. You don’t hesitate to get out of bed. You know you need to get to the local office of the South Africa Social Security Agency (SASSA) to get in the queue to get your pension. You’re anxious.
Paul Musoke from FSD Africa on how alternative data can help reach the underserved.
Discover new technologies that enable more sustainable data collection. Sustainable data collection is a central concern for all researchers. Research budgets are under pressure, and response rates using traditional data collection methods are declining. This has put pressure on researchers to critically assess the way in which they design surveys and how they can
The World Bank estimated that in 2016 remittances from migrant workers to developing countries will be worth USD 440 billion. More than twice that of foreign aid. Remittances play a critical role in supporting the welfare of many individuals and households in developing countries. Moreover, remittances can contribute to economic
Over the past five years, the move towards digital financial services and simplified account opening procedures has improved the take-up of accounts by the low-income sector. The 2014 global Findex data highlighted that the number of people without access to formal accounts decreased from 2.5 billion in 2011 to 2
BR Research recently sat down in Islamabad with a team of researchers from the insight2impact (i2i) facility who were on a visit to Pakistan earlier this month. A data resource centre hosted by South Africa-based think-tank Cenfri and market facilitator FinMark Trust, the i2i facility is sponsored by Bill &
Thoughts from the first event in the #DataHacks4FI meet-up series in Nairobi In Kenya, agriculture is the second largest contributor to GDP and the largest supporter of livelihoods. 75% of the labour force in Kenya is employed in agriculture and 33% of all adults derive their main source of income
Building mutually beneficial financial inclusion communities through data The first language that l was exposed to as a child was Sotho/Tswana. My maternal grandfather had this saying as one of his favourites, “Noka etlatswa ke dinokana”, meaning “a river gets full through its tributaries for it to flow yearlong”. This
The business of insurance is hard. Microinsurance delivery has proven to be nearly impossible. Despite almost two decades of focus on the under and uninsured, microinsurance reaches just under 300 million people across the developing world. This is only around 10% of the potential market for insurance. While promising examples
The 2017 budget, unveiled by the Minister of Finance Honourable Felix Mutati in Zambia earlier this month incorporates new austerity measures but has incorporated significant increases in social welfare benefits. . However, restricted liquidity conditions in the Zambian economy have significantly impacted access to capital and finance, hindering the expansion
Your alarm goes off. It’s 3am on the last Friday of the month. You don’t hesitate to get out of bed. You know you need to get to the local office of the South Africa Social Security Agency (SASSA) to get in the queue to get your pension. You’re anxious.
Paul Musoke from FSD Africa on how alternative data can help reach the underserved.
Discover new technologies that enable more sustainable data collection. Sustainable data collection is a central concern for all researchers. Research budgets are under pressure, and response rates using traditional data collection methods are declining. This has put pressure on researchers to critically assess the way in which they design surveys and how they can
The World Bank estimated that in 2016 remittances from migrant workers to developing countries will be worth USD 440 billion. More than twice that of foreign aid. Remittances play a critical role in supporting the welfare of many individuals and households in developing countries. Moreover, remittances can contribute to economic
Over the past five years, the move towards digital financial services and simplified account opening procedures has improved the take-up of accounts by the low-income sector. The 2014 global Findex data highlighted that the number of people without access to formal accounts decreased from 2.5 billion in 2011 to 2
BR Research recently sat down in Islamabad with a team of researchers from the insight2impact (i2i) facility who were on a visit to Pakistan earlier this month. A data resource centre hosted by South Africa-based think-tank Cenfri and market facilitator FinMark Trust, the i2i facility is sponsored by Bill &
