Women & Money: Insights and a Path to Close the Gender Gap

The Women and Money program is a four-year initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that aims to understand the complex realities that keep women excluded from digital financial services (DFS) and create solutions to build their agency, voice and influence over money.

As part of this initiative, IDEO conducted human-centered design research with over 450 people, including almost 275 women across seven contexts, with a focus on rural areas: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Northern Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Tanzania. The research team started by looking narrowly at the barriers and opportunities within digital financial services and the moment of CICO, but the reality is that the barriers of access are far beyond this moment. The research findings present the key challenges women face, the power and workarounds they demonstrate in the face of these barriers, and the design opportunities for the financial sector, policymakers and regulators, the philanthropic sector, NGOs, and designers everywhere.