FinEquity Africa Our Radar: April 2024

The Feed the Future Ethiopia Transforming Agriculture project aims to transform Ethiopia’s agriculture and food systems and support women- and youth-owned businesses. The project conducted a Gender, Youth, Economic, and Social Inclusion (GYESI) Analysis and Strategy to gain insights into how to better support these businesses. This blog highlights three new and innovative approaches to steward GYESI integration across its program implementation.

CGAP interviewed 600 people in Nigeria and Bangladesh about how climate shocks have impacted their lives and livelihoods, how they responded, and how financial services did or didn't help. This blog shares how Umma in Kano state and others like her tried to protect their livelihoods from the endless droughts and sudden rainfall - and what it means for their long-term resilience.

This report is aimed at supporting policy-makers, practitioners and advocates for change to understand the ways in which gender norms affect women’s economic outcomes and to identify ways to promote more equitable norms. It synthesizes key insights on common sets of norms that influence different aspects of WEE and discusses how these norms influence outcomes in specific domains of economic activity: employment; access to and control of non-financial assets; financial inclusion; and entrepreneurship. Where evidence is available, these chapters discuss the relationships between gender norms, WEE and key contemporary challenges, including the growing imperative for ‘climate-smart’ economic development.

New research from the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, in partnership with Intuit, highlights the key experiences, challenges and opportunities from 1,156 women entrepreneurs from South and Central America, Africa, Asia and Europe, with particular focus on digital, AI, networks, online gender-based violence, gender discrimination and accessing finance. 

The Better Than Cash Alliance is a UN-based global partnership committed to accelerating the transition from cash to responsible digital payments to advance the SDGs. The Alliance prioritizes women's financial inclusion, enabling them to meet their needs in digital payments, entrepreneurship, and policymaking. In this video we learn more about the importance of empowering women financially through tailored products and responsible digital payments from their initiatives in Ethiopia, Pakistan, Guatemala and Colombia.