Four Ways to Integrate Gender in Financial Inclusion Investments

Estelle Lahaye & Katie Turner - September 2023

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https://www.cgap.org/blog/four-ways-to-integrate-gender-in-financial-inclusion-investments

A growing number of financial inclusion investors want to be more intentional about achieving positive gender outcomes through their investments in financial services providers (FSPs). They recognize that improving women’s financial inclusion outcomes can contribute to achieving women’s empowerment and gender equality. However, to achieve this, they need to move beyond simply counting the number of women who can access and use financial services. 

CGAP has long argued that how funders work is fundamental in shaping their ability to achieve long-lasting financial inclusion impact, including contributing to improvements in women’s economic empowerment (WEE) and gender equality. This also applies for impact investors, and begs the question: How can impact investors focused on financial inclusion be more intentional about integrating gender throughout the investment cycle to improve women’s financial inclusion and contribute to WEE and gender equality?

This year, CGAP engaged with a range of financial inclusion investors and found that several are more intentionally integrating gender into various stages of the investment process. While still early on, we’d like to highlight four emerging practices that some investors are using.