Searching: Blogs

Beyond the Headlines: EAP's Hidden Inclusion Gaps

While high-level data suggests financial inclusion is rising in East Asia and the Pacific, China’s massive progress often masks disparities elsewhere. Here, we explore the "hidden gaps" facing women and rural communities and call for more inclusive financial systems.

Banking on Carbon: Inclusive Finance in Colombia

In Colombia, CGAP, Karbon-X, and Bancamía are exploring how inclusive financial services can support forest conservation and community impact. Learn how savings, loans, and digital payments can help households to build resilience without relying on deforestation.

What’s Driving Quiet Gains for Young Women’s Use of Financial Services?

Young women’s use of financial services jumped 9 points since 2021. Findex 2025 data suggests government transfers now play a bigger role in shaping young women’s financial behaviors, narrowing the gender gap despite stable education and wage trends.

Rethinking Evidence: When Does Inclusive Finance Work and for Whom

This leadership essay reassesses what we think we know as a sector, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the existing evidence base and proposing new methods for building a better one.

Towards Right-Fit IMM: Orienting Around Outcomes

Achieving outcomes orientation in inclusive finance investing starts with understanding what shapes it. CGAP’s emerging framework highlights the factors influencing outcomes orientation in IMM — and where the capital value chain can focus to make it stronger.

The Power of Microdata From Global Findex

In this blog, CGAP goes beyond the aggregate data in Global Findex and uses its microdata to examine financial inclusion at the individual level. Here’s how we are doing it and why.

New Data Show the Key Role of Inclusive Finance in Climate Adaptation

Our latest Findex blog takes a deep dive into Findex 2025 data at the intersection of climate shocks, resilience, and financial services, and underscores the vital importance of generating bottom-up data on climate adaptation.

From Access to Agency: The Next Chapter in Women’s Financial Inclusion

Despite global progress, meaningful gender gaps in account ownership still persist in 65 economies. Our latest Findex blog unpacks new data on women’s financial inclusion and identifies the opportunities ahead.

Measuring Financial Health: Findex Broadens Its Scope

Financial health is rising on global agendas, but measuring it remains fragmented. The 2025 Global Findex expands coverage across four key dimensions, offering a step toward global benchmarks while balancing local realities.

Breaking the Cash Habit: The Urgent Need to Accelerate Digital Merchant Payments

In the latest blog in our Findex series, we look at the importance of accelerating digital merchant payments and what is needed to move Sub-Saharan Africa from potential to momentum.

Rethinking Impact Measurement and Management: Fit for Outcomes

Too often, impact measurement focuses on what’s easiest to track, rather than what’s most useful for decision-making. We challenge conventional approaches to impact measurement and management (IMM), offering a practical way forward: use cases that align IMM strategies with investment context, purpose, and outcomes goals.

When Does Financial Education Work Best? Evidence-Based Insights

CGAP’s Impact Pathfinder consistently identified financial education as a factor for the uptake and use of financial services, prompting us to ask: Could it be playing a more central role in what works, for whom, and in what circumstances?

The Hidden Costs of Forex Funding: Do Women Pay a Higher Price?

Smaller lenders serve women borrowers best but face high costs, forex risk, and limited scale. In light of this fact, donors and DFIs must expand local currency funding and strengthen risk management to close the gender gap in finance.

Competition as a Catalyst for Financial Inclusion

Healthy competition in the financial sector is essential for advancing financial inclusion, as it lowers costs, spurs innovation, improves access and service quality—especially for underserved populations.

Bringing Resilience to the Table to Achieve Development Goals

CGAP's Impact Pathfinder provides insights into the role of financial services in building the resilience of vulnerable populations and small businesses globally.

Does Microcredit Drive Jobs Growth? Here’s What the Evidence Shows

Microcredit can help MSEs create jobs and build resilience but often falls short on growth. The Impact Pathfinder highlights credit’s opportunities and gaps, stressing the need for better financial products and support to boost employment.

Bridging the Evidence Gap in Women’s Financial Inclusion

Women’s financial inclusion is paramount, but how does it drive real economic empowerment? CGAP's Impact Pathfinder maps what we know—and what we don’t—about credit, savings, digital payments, and insurance for women.

The Evidence of Credit and Insurance’s Role in Tackling Climate Change

Drawing on evidence to examine how financial services can advance climate action and other development outcomes, CGAP's Impact Pathfinder is a gateway to understanding what the existing evidence tells us, and knowledge gaps that need to be filled.

3 Lessons From Côte D’Ivoire on Responsible Digital Finance Ecosystems

CGAP’s WAEMU Lab has been working to improve consumer protection for DFS users in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Burkina Faso. A 2022 survey in Côte d’Ivoire revealed significant risks, but a 2024 follow-up showed progress, with 3 key lessons emerging.

Impact Pathfinder: Leveraging Evidence to Shape Financial Inclusion

CGAP, in partnership with Dalberg, has developed the Impact Pathfinder as part of a new outcome agenda for the financial inclusion community. The Impact Pathfinder makes existing evidence on financial inclusion more accessible and actionable.