by Jemimah Njuki, Martha Melesse, Amono Ng’weno, Anne Rappoldt, Comfort Phelane, Jesse d’Anjou, Michelle Hassan, Richard Keltey, Saskia Vossenberg

1. Beyond Access: Gender Transformative Financial
Inclusion in Agriculture and Entrepreneurship
Jemimah Njuki1, Martha Melesse1, Amono Ng’weno2, Anne Rappoldt3,
Comfort Phelane4, Jesse d’Anjou3, Michelle Hassan2, Richard Keltey4,
Saskia Vossenberg3
1International Development Research Centre
2Bankable Frontier Associates
3Royal Tropical Institute of the Netherlands
4Genesis Analytics

2. What is financial inclusion?
• Everyone has access to and use of affordable financial products
and services that meet their needs—savings, credit, insurance,
transactions, or any combination of these services
• Women’s financial inclusion important for agriculture and
enterprises, but limited by constraints of time, legal rights,
human capacity, security concerns, lack of money
• This chapter: focuses on financial inclusion for women as
entrepreneurs in agriculture and small and medium enterprises
in Africa

3. Although ownership of a formal account is increasing, a gender
gap remains
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Women Men All
Trends in ownership of a formal account by men and women in Africa, south of
the Sahara
2011 2014 2018
Source: World Bank Findex data

4. There is a lot of variation across countries, but gender gaps exist
in financial accounts (both bank and mobile money)
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Zimbabwe
Uganda
Mozambique
Mali
Liberia
Kenya
Ghana
Gabon
Cote d'Ivoire
DR Congo
Chad
Cameroon
Gender gap in financial accounts, selected countries
Bank Mobile money

5. Only 6-19% of women smallholder farmers have bank accounts,
and only 14-34% of women entrepreneurs
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Kenya Rwanda Zambia
Entrepreneurs
Women Men
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Cote
d'Ivoire
Kenya Rwanda Tanzania Uganda Zambia
Farmers
Women Men

6. Gender-related constraints in financing
Demand side
• Unequal bargaining power in
household & market
• Concentration in informal & micro
activities
• Limited time & mobility (care work)
• No collateral assets
• No formal ID
• No cell phone
• Limited financial and legal literacy
• No trust in banks
• Limited access to business education
• No role models
• Powerless networks
Supply side
• Inappropriate product and service
offerings
• Gender-blind marketing
• Inappropriate distribution channels
• Restrictive account opening
requirements
• Inaccessible locations
• Limited or disrespectful client
engagement
• Limited trust & belief in women’s
business success

7. Financial sector innovations focused on
women
• Microfinance institutions
• Village savings and loan
associations
• Fintech solutions
• Innovations that transform the
market (lift all boats)
• Innovations that specifically
target women
• Digitizing institutions and
services that serve women

8. Fintech solutions
Innovations that benefit the
market in general
• Mobile money products (M-Pesa);
women less likely to spend money
they save in M-Pesa rather than
keeping it at home; increased
financial independence
• Insurance delivered through mobile
services
• Agency banking—roaming staff
increase women’s access, link
client directly to financial institution
to reduce risk, distance, indirect
cost of financial participation
Gender-targeted fintech solutions
• Very few fintech solutions targeted
to women
• Most innovations are in health and
education and social transfer
schemes

9. Fintech solutions
Fintech solutions for institutions
serving women
• Cloud-based banking systems for
MFIs that are too small to develop
and maintain their own IT and MIS
systems
• Digitization of savings groups
• Electronic record keeping
• Providing credit scores for
smallholder women
But all these innovations have been introduced in a business and social context that still
has significant gender bias

10. What is gender-transformative financial
inclusion?
• A way of doing financial inclusion directed towards creating
gender-equal financial systems that enable all entrepreneurs,
regardless of gender, to overcome supply- and demand-side
constraints and improve their livelihoods on equal terms
• Gender-transformative financial inclusion does not accept what
men and women can, have, and do, but challenge the
inequalities embedded in society
• More political than mainstream approaches: go beyond
“business as usual” and challenge systemic inequalities

11. Components of gender-transformative financial inclusion
Characteristics
• Gender analysis of
entrepreneurial ecosystem
• Capacity building on supply and
demand sides
• Diverse strategies and
interventions, targeted to
multiple levels
• Innovative partnerships and
multi-stakeholder commitments
to meaningful change
• Action learning integrated into
strategies and interventions
Outcomes
• Women’s empowerment
• Strengthened relationships and
negotiation dynamics
• Enabling formal institutions
(policies and regulations)
• Enabling informal institutions
(socio-cultural norms)

12. • Gender-transformative financial inclusion is about making
financial systems “womenable” rather than making women
“bankable”
• Change the system, not the woman!
• Changing rules & practices, regulatory systems & social norms
• Changing women’s skills, knowledge, resources to empower
• Changing relationships in household, market, community