CGAP
CGAP is a global partnership of more than 30 leading development organizations that works to advance the lives of poor people, especially women, through financial inclusion. Using action-oriented research, we test, learn and share knowledge intended to help build inclusive and responsible financial systems that enable poor people to capture economic opportunities, access essential services, and build resilience, including in the context of climate change. We research and experiment to establish proofs of concept and extract actionable insights that help our partners implement solutions in the marketplace and take them to scale. In short, we influence through evidence. By doing so, we hope to advance broader development goals and contribute to more prosperous, equal, resilient, sustainable economies and societies. CGAP's objective is to foster inclusive financial services that enable poor people, especially women, to use financial solutions that are relevant to their needs and that enable them to capture opportunities and build resilience. This includes: Supporting the development of infrastructure that enables a ubiquitous, open, safe, equitable, effective, and competitive market; Informing policy and regulatory frameworks for responsible financial inclusion that are effectively and equitably enforced; Supporting providers to offer affordable, relevant, responsible, equitable, accessible, robust/sustainable financial solutions to poor people, especially women; Improving the extent to which poor people have relevant information, incentives, trust, capability, and networks to participate in the financial system; Influencing funders in effective financial inclusion interventions and scaling impact.
Innovations in the microfinance program planned for the coming year
Focus on client needs, in particular of agriculture income dependent households.
Areas of intervention
Applied research - Testing & piloting
MFI operations (e.g. general management, governance, finance and accounting, staff training, recruiting)
Risk management
Energy products, or other products related to environmental issues
Interventions focused on individual MF practitioners
Environmental microfinance
Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE) Finance
Digitization of MFIs
Delivery models (group, indiv.)
Financial product development and innovation
Gender
Post-conflit/disaster microfiance
