Monitoring Digital Financial Inclusion in Africa
Introduction
Digital finance is a growing sector with the potential to enable sustainable development. A McKinsey study found that digital finance could increase access to financial services for 1.6 billion people in emerging economies, while also boosting economic growth and tax revenues. Moreover, promoting digital financial inclusion is important to supporting marginalized groups, especially women. Although digital financial services have proliferated throughout Africa over recent years, and one in five adults in Sub-Saharan Africa now have a mobile money account, an estimated 400 million people on the continent are still without access, many of them women. In 2019, under French leadership, the G7 launched a new initiative to fight these economic inequalities: The G7 Partnership for Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion in Africa (G7P). The partnership aims to support African governments, banks, and financial institutions to provide more equitable and accessible digital financial systems for all people, particularly women. The G7P brings together a myriad of existing institutions working in Africa on complementary issues of research, investment, and regulation around digital finance and its potential benefits for women.
About the Project
With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, TReNDS is leading an accountability workstream for the G7 Partnership for Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion in Africa. TReNDS plays an independent role in the partnership, acting as a convener to foster increased knowledge exchange, coordination, and collaboration and to evaluate the partners’ work to ensure the efficacy of the partnership through an annual report and event.
Resources
Presentations and Events
This StoryMap features insights and findings from the 2023 Accountability Report , which focuses on the theme of "digital safety" and offers reflections on the progress of the collaborative in its fourth year of implementation and provides recommendations for improving its collective impact.
Digital Financial Inclusion for Women in Africa: A Path to Recovery, Resilience, and Innovation
On the sidelines of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), the G7 Partnership for Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion in Africa and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) co-hosted an event in which key African leaders, the Partnership’s core champions, and emerging advocates leading implementation efforts on the ground discussed the importance of collaborating across institutional boundaries to mobilize greater digital financial inclusion.
On the sidelines of the 2020 UN General Assembly, TReNDS hosted a virtual event on behalf of the G7 Partnership highlighting key issues around digital financial inclusion. The event featured several champions of digital financial inclusion, including H.M. Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, H.E. Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa, H.E. Nicolas de Rivière, Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations, and Mrs. Melinda Gates.
Reports
ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT 2023: G7 Partnership for Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion in Africa
In its fourth year of implementation, this year’s G7 Partnership for Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion in Africa (G7P) report reflects on the theme of “digital safety” to advance women’s DFI, provides a progress update on the effectiveness of the partnership, and shares practical steps to improve the G7P’s performance in the final year of implementation.
ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT 2022: G7 Partnership for Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion in Africa
This report focused on the theme of “trust” and offers reflections on the progress of the collaborative in its second full year of implementation and provides recommendations for improving its collective impact.
ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT 2021: G7 Partnership for Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion in Africa
This report tracked the implementation progress of the partnership during its first full year of implementation and offered suggestions to improve partnership performance.
For more information on this initiative, contact castelline.tilus@unsdsn.org.