Women’s World Banking is closing the access to skills gap, learn more here. As part of our work focused on closing the skills gap, we are collating in one place resources from Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion (WDFI) Advocacy Hub coalition members to help governments, financial service providers and civil society organizations ensure every woman has access to initiatives that can increase her confidence and digital financial capabilities. The WDFI Advocacy Hub is a catalyst for collective action unifying local, regional, and global stakeholders with the common objective of accelerating progress in women’s digital financial inclusion. These resources range from webinars and reports to case studies and apps for building gender-intentional products.
We know this is far from an exhaustive list of all the excellent resources available to support women’s digital financial inclusion. If you are interested in sharing a resource of your own, or becoming part of the WDFI Advocacy Hub, please contact wdfihub@womensworldbanking.org.
Resource Overview
AfricaNenda
- AfricaNenda Webinar: Understanding the Training Needs of MSMEs in the Use of Digital Payments
AfricaNenda, in partnership with The COMESA Business Council (CBC) and The United Nations Economic Commission Africa (UNECA), assessed the training needs of MSMEs in the use of digital financial services for cross-border trade in five countries: Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia. Learn key findings from the assessment report and ways of improving MSMEs’ ability to uptake DFS for cross-border trade. - Report: Use of Cross-Border Digital Payments in the COMESA Region
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Business Council (CBC) is working to develop and deploy an integrated, low-cost, interoperable and fraud-resistant digital payments platform. This report captures the findings of a market research conducted to assess the key challenges faced by Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to develop an understanding of their training needs for accelerating the use of digital payments for cross-border transactions. - Flagship Report: 2022 State of Instant and Inclusive Payment Systems
The State of Instant and Inclusive Payment Systems in Africa (SIIPS) report is an AfricaNenda’s initiative together with the World Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. The SIIPS report aims to inform payment actors in Africa and beyond about the developments in the instant retail payment system (IPS) ecosystem on the continent.
Better Than Cash Alliance
- Igniting SDG Progress Through Digital Financial Inclusion (2023 edition) BTCA Report
For leaders in government, business, or civil society, this compendium will give plenty of good reasons to make responsible digital financial inclusion a priority to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
- UN Principles for Responsible Digital Payments in Action > Launch of Online Learning Course
The UN Principles for Responsible Digital Payments online learning course explains the nine overarching principles and serves as a practical guide for governments, companies and international organizations embracing responsible digital payments in their journey to build trust, mitigating risks, and driving inclusive economies.
Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA)
Ongoing studies
- Leveraging Payment Data for Greater Gender Equity in Credit Scoring
The CEGA research team is interested in understanding whether gender-differentiated credit scoring models using non-traditional data can increase women’s access to formal credit, whether women rejected by standard credit scoring models benefit from credit access, and how these benefits compare to the benefits of credit access for women selected by standard models. To investigate, they’re partnering with RappiCard Mexico, the fintech arm of a leading delivery platform in Latin America, to develop novel gender-based credit scoring algorithms and evaluate the impact of using them to allocate credit. This builds off of prior pilot work in the Dominican Republic. - Agricultural Credit, Insurance and Over-Indebtedness Among Smallholder Farmers
This study analyzes whether credit disbursed using a novel credit-scoring model, bundled with crop insurance, expands borrowing and investments in agricultural technologies, while protecting farmers from default and over-indebtedness. It builds off a pilot study which showed that this approach boosted demand among women and may be less discriminatory than traditional approaches, as credit allocation does not rely on formal records that women are less likely to own. - Decoding Digitally Enabled Financial Privacy: What it Means for Women
Though it’s generally assumed that providing women an opportunity to conceal their income from their family is good, this assumption is neither well-understood nor backed by rigorous evidence. This mixed methods study aims to generate feedback on the definition of privacy for women in low-income areas of Nairobi, Kenya, how they experience privacy and establish a metric that quantifies the demand for privacy.
GSMA
- The Digital Financial Literacy toolkit: Addressing the Gap in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
Digital financial literacy (DFL) remains a key challenge and hindrance to the uptake and use of digital financial services products. The toolkit calls for collaboration between all mobile money stakeholders, especially in the development of national DFL programs and initiatives. It offers guidelines on how each stakeholder can contribute to financial literacy and underscores the value of coordinating monitoring and evaluation for data-driven DFL initiatives. - Understanding Women Micro-Entrepreneurs’ Use of Mobile Phones for Business
This report provides new data and insights from 10 low- and middle-income countries on the use of mobile phones by women micro-entrepreneurs and the challenges that prevent them from using mobile services for business. It highlights the mobile gender gaps and how barriers such as not having the right kind of handset, and low confidence or digital skills, as well as gendered social norms, tend to put women micro-entrepreneurs at a disadvantage, causing them to miss out on the benefits of mobile.
Cherie Blair Foundation
- “Her Venture” App
This award-winning app offers women entrepreneurs essential business training and support on the go. It features a range of learning tracks on topics including launching a business, accessing finance, expanding market access, e-commerce and mobile money.
FinEquity
- Enabling Women’s Digital Financial inclusion through Digital Financial Literacy Synthesis of FinEquity Members’ Insights
This brief is a FinEquity community effort focused on helping the financial inclusion community understand digital financial literacy and better address this component of the digital financial services gender gap. This framework helps unpack the different dimensions of digital financial literacy and demonstrate why they should not be tackled in isolation as they are very much connected. The brief also includes four case studies of organizations addressing DFL.
Women’s World Banking
- Empowering Women on a Journey Towards Digital Financial Capability
Financial inclusion is becoming more and more digital. To accelerate this journey to digitization, and not let women customers be left even further behind, we need to ensure policymakers and financial service providers focus on effectively supporting women customers build their digital financial capabilities, so they can use digital financial services with ease and confidence.
This report focuses on building the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for customers to engage with digital financial services – and with that, goes beyond the work to date on financial literacy, financial capability and digital literacy. We also offer practical tools to develop DFC initiatives that promote women’s active engagement in digital financial services and their economic empowerment. - Policy Brief: Making Digital Public Infrastructure Work for Women
Global evidence across countries shows that leveraging core components of the overall financial ecosystem including payment infrastructure, digital identity, and data exchange in tandem with existing banking networks, provide an impetus to advance financial inclusion while also increasing usage and adoption of financial services. These core components or infrastructure enablers are referred to as Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). The following brief comprises suggested policy recommendations that leverage DPI to enable and advance women’s economic empowerment through financial inclusion.
Digital Financial Capability (DFC) building and DPI are inextricably linked, as building strong DFC is critical to get the most return out of DPI. - Report: Building Digital Finance Solutions for Women E-Commerce Entrepreneurs: A Demand-Side Exploration in Indonesia
The report is directed at government, e-commerce providers and financial services providers. It concludes with a matrix of activities and recommendations for building better design and implementation of digital and financial programs, products, and services for women e-commerce entrepreneurs in Indonesia. It is available in English and Bahasa Indonesia.
UNCDF
- Gender Disaggregated Data Mapping Tool
The UNCDF Gender Disaggregated Mapping Tool is a resource designed to accompany institutions in assessing — and addressing — their issues in regard to gender disaggregated data. No matter how far along your institution is on their data journey, whether that’s enhancing existing gender policies, improving current data functions or simply starting at zero, our tool covers all the bases. - UNCDF Policy Accelerator Tools and Resources
As economies increasingly rely on technology-driven financial systems, ensuring transparent, well-informed, and inclusive policymaking becomes essential. The UNCDF Policy Accelerator tools and resources provide a platform for stakeholders, from governments and regulatory bodies to industry partners and consumer advocates, to collaborate and engage in informed discussions.
