GRID Impact

Introducing collective member: Caroline Morrow

What GRID projects are you working on right now?

I’m primarily supporting the Women’s Financial Inclusion (WFI) program led by the Inclusive Financial Systems (IFS) team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, on a range of activities that stand to improve gender integration in financial services. I’m also currently working with the Gender Equality Digital Connectivity team at the Gates Foundation, and have worked other projects with the IFS team over the last year, including ones focused on Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and inclusive instant payment systems (IIPS).

What drew you to becoming a GRID collective member?

I was drawn to GRID’s human-centered and behavioral approach to research and design services. With experience working on both rigorous impact evaluations and qualitative research projects, I’ve learned that centering lived experiences is essential. As is creating research products that people use in real life! What I like most about being a GRID Collective member is that human-centered design isn’t just part of our client work, it’s how *we* work. I love collaborating with and learning from collective members across the world who are smart, passionate, and kind!

Reflections from Addis! Last month, we had the pleasure of sharing our research on barriers and opportunities to women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion (WEE-FI) at the FinEquity Africa Annual Convening 2024.

Born out of a desire to promote evidence-based decision-making, our research identifies barriers that are most relevant to different types of women in specific markets and makes recommendations about interventions that can address them. We shared insights into different segments of women in Ethiopia, and looked at similarities and differences in neighboring Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

While there are many barriers to WEE-FI, the good news is that there are also many opportunities for overcoming them...and the general sentiment in Addis was that we have the ability to go far in advancing WEE-FI if diverse sets of stakeholders continue to work together—and with—women to develop financial products and services that meet their unique needs.

For more info on the barriers research, check out our newly re-vamped website https://www.wee-fi-barriers.org/

To learn more about the events in Addis last month, read Caroline’s new blog post: https://www.findevgateway.org/finequity/blog/2024/04/reflections-from-2024-finequity-africa-annual-convening

The Financial Services for the Poor (FSP) program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation seeks to expand access to digital financial services so the poorest people around the globe can build security and prosperity for themselves, their families, and their communities.

In working toward their strategic vision for 2030, the FSP team aims to prioritize and address the most significant barriers for women in order to set new priorities and make new investment, collaboration, and advocacy decisions.

Working together with the FSP Team, and our partners at Strategic Impact Advisors, we launched a comprehensive analysis of the barriers women faced in FSP’s focus countries with insight into how the barriers contextualized into respective markets, and which barriers proved to be most prevalent among countries.

Visit www.gridimpact.org/wee-fi for more information and to download the free resources!