The increasing prominence of financial inclusion as a tool for development and growth has spawned extensive data-gathering initiatives to measure, understand and improve it. The result is a variety of new measurement frameworks that leverage this data.
Early indications suggest that financial inclusion targets (such as the percentage of adults with a bank account) remain valid, but they don’t tell you much when tracked in isolation. Are people actually using their financial services, can serve as a useful measurement of consumer status or outcomes, and, more importantly, what is the impact on livelihoods?
See how we are working to change the way financial inclusion is viewed and the data used to measure it.
Advances in technology have fundamentally changed the way in which survey and behavioural data is collected. There has been a steady decline in face-to-face and telephonic data collection over the past 10 years, with a corresponding and rapid increase in digital data collection. The widespread use of the mobile phone
In a previous blog on 10 innovations in qualitative research, I wrote about the importance of using a greater variety of research designs, methods and data collection techniques when conducting financial inclusion research. Similarly, this blog discusses some innovative quantitative methods that could be used when conducting financial inclusion research. It is
Financial inclusion has evolved from a grass-root microfinance movement in the 1980s to a mainstream item on the development agenda. Its increasing prominence is attested, amongst others, by the formation of the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI), the recognition of financial inclusion in the Sustainable Development Goals and
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 &
Why what you measure in financial inclusion is so important to the outcomes you achieve Financial inclusion is increasingly recognised as a policy instrument to deliver on policy objectives such as welfare, health outcomes and food security. In fact, it is deemed so important that the recently published United Nations
Patience, a restaurant owner in Goma in the eastern DRC, has a dream of owning her own land. She saves a modest 2000 Congolese Francs (just less than USD 2) every day. This is no small feat: it requires daily sacrifices and a lot of self-discipline. So she doesn’t tell
They say that “if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.” This is how I feel about achieving an impact. I learnt this the hard way, having run five marathons in my lifetime while devoting a decade and a half of
This week I drove 600km from Cape Town airport to my home and sheep farm in the rural Karoo. Whereas the drive was pleasant and gave me time to reflect on many things, the joy of driving was definitely not the purpose of this journey. Getting home to my family
If we move away from a one-dimensional view of financial inclusion as the percentage of adults with a formal bank account, we find that formal financial services are in fact having a limited impact on people’s lives (or in some cases leaving people worse off). Insights from the MAP Global Insights
Advances in technology have fundamentally changed the way in which survey and behavioural data is collected. There has been a steady decline in face-to-face and telephonic data collection over the past 10 years, with a corresponding and rapid increase in digital data collection. The widespread use of the mobile phone
In a previous blog on 10 innovations in qualitative research, I wrote about the importance of using a greater variety of research designs, methods and data collection techniques when conducting financial inclusion research. Similarly, this blog discusses some innovative quantitative methods that could be used when conducting financial inclusion research. It is
Financial inclusion has evolved from a grass-root microfinance movement in the 1980s to a mainstream item on the development agenda. Its increasing prominence is attested, amongst others, by the formation of the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI), the recognition of financial inclusion in the Sustainable Development Goals and
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 &
Why what you measure in financial inclusion is so important to the outcomes you achieve Financial inclusion is increasingly recognised as a policy instrument to deliver on policy objectives such as welfare, health outcomes and food security. In fact, it is deemed so important that the recently published United Nations
Patience, a restaurant owner in Goma in the eastern DRC, has a dream of owning her own land. She saves a modest 2000 Congolese Francs (just less than USD 2) every day. This is no small feat: it requires daily sacrifices and a lot of self-discipline. So she doesn’t tell
They say that “if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.” This is how I feel about achieving an impact. I learnt this the hard way, having run five marathons in my lifetime while devoting a decade and a half of
This week I drove 600km from Cape Town airport to my home and sheep farm in the rural Karoo. Whereas the drive was pleasant and gave me time to reflect on many things, the joy of driving was definitely not the purpose of this journey. Getting home to my family
If we move away from a one-dimensional view of financial inclusion as the percentage of adults with a formal bank account, we find that formal financial services are in fact having a limited impact on people’s lives (or in some cases leaving people worse off). Insights from the MAP Global Insights
