ABOUT WOMEN and MONEY
Women and Money is an IDEO.org program funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is a three-year initiative to surface the complex realities that keep women excluded from financial services and build solutions that unlock new opportunities to include women. In 2019, we conducted research in six contexts: Tanzania, Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, and India culminating in a report that illuminates global insights and opportunities for design. In 2020 and 2021, we designed new solutions in Bangladesh and Northern Kenya to increase women’s access to digital financial services— specifically by designing around the agent experience. In 2021, we also expanded our research to Indonesia and updated our global report to reflect our learnings.
We were inspired by the women we met. We hope you will be too.
7
contexts
20
in-country partners
450
in-depth interview
RESEARCH REPORTS
Nigeria Report: Research conducted in 2019
Pakistan Report: Research conducted in 2019
Tanzania Report: Research conducted in 2018
Lifestages Report: Project conducted in 2020-2021
Bangladesh Report: Research conducted in 2019
India Report: Research conducted in 2019
Indonesia: Research conducted in 2021. English report is available here and Bahasa Indonesia report here.
Kenya: Research conducted in 2019
NEW Solutions
BRAC SHAKTI
A LEARNING PLATFORM TO ONBOARD WOMEN TO DIGITAL FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GOING TO THE AGENT IN BANGLADESH.
BRAC Shakti is an incentive program that boosts women’s confidence with DFS by surrounding them with the peer support they need to explore, learn, and gain comfort with new digital tools. In 2020, we partnered with BRAC’s Social Innovation Lab and bKash to onboard women to mobile and digital financial services in rural Bangladesh. The goal was to incentivize their digital financial use by increasing their confidence at the moment cash-in and cash-out. We developed a solution called BRAC Shakti and launched a pilot in October 2021 that will reach 5,000 rural women in the Hoar region in six months, with the goal of expanding beyond the pilot to more women and other regions.
BODA PESA
A NEW ROVING AGENT MODEL THAT BRINGS DIGITAL FINANCIAL SERVICES CLOSER TO WOMEN IN RURAL, NORTHERN KENYA.
In communities where women may walk 10-30km to their nearest agent, Boda Pesa offers convenience and new opportunities to rural communities. It is a model that women can trust because it is driven by community based ambassadors that link women to agents who will travel to them. And, the business model is viable for agents because they can offer additional services that increase their profitability per trip. Boda Pesa was developed in partnership with BOMA Project and PesaKit, and in collaboration with Safaricom. We launched a pilot in November 2021 that will reach 1,000 women in Northern Kenya.
INSPIRATION
CHANGE+
A CONCEPTS AND EMERGING WORK TO INSPIRE FUTURE SOLUTIONS.
Change+ is an immersive digital experience to explore the future vision where rural women and last-mile communities have achieved power and prosperity through improved cash-in/cash-out (CICO) and digital financial services (DFS). Built in collaboration with Last Mile Money, this platform showcases impactful solutions and prototypes that you can apply to your communities.
Contact
We believe women owning their financial futures is inevitable, but will be hard-won. Join us, because together we can build a more equitable future.
Connect with us
Working on something similar to Women & Money? Interested in building with our program? Email us to connect.
GENDER INTENTIONAL DESIGN
Want to start a journey to be more gender intentional in how you are designing digital financial services? Check out our Gender in Design Toolkit to help you learn new approaches and tools. Built in collaboration with KoreGlobal and IDEO.org