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Igniting SDG Progress Through Digital Financial Inclusion - 2023 Edition

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Introduction

Digital financial services offer real hope to help the world get back on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

New evidence demonstrates how responsible digital financial inclusion creates the foundation for inclusive growing economies. Building on the success of the first compendium, Igniting SDG progress through digital financial inclusion, released in 2018, this new version takes a stronger focus on women and climate change across all SDGs.

Pressing global challenges—crucially, the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, unpredictable climate shocks, protracted international conflicts, high inflation and rising food insecurity—continue to adversely impact emerging economies. Women are worst hit. Nearly 400 million women and girls are expected to be living in extreme poverty by the end of this year. Over the past decade, 80% of the 250 million people forcibly displaced by natural disasters in emerging economies were women. Yet they have less access to technology and productive resources, and have less capacity to adapt their livelihoods.

Digitial financial services can enable financing for billions of people facing emergencies, such as health crises, natural disasters and conflict. The digitization of public sector wages and social protection schemes in recent years, especially during the pandemic, prompted millions of previously unbanked women to open accounts.

Nearly 70% of women in emerging economies have an account—a rise of more than 30 percentage points over the past decade, according to the recently released World Bank Global Findex.

If you are a leader in government, business, or civil society, this compendium will give you plenty of good reasons to make responsible digital financial inclusion a priority. You will find extensive evidence-based examples for each of the 13 SDGs relevant to the wide benefits of inclusive digital financial services, including:

  • In Uganda’s northern region, the use of mobile money accounts for households in rural areas raised food security by 45% (SDG 2).

  • In India, a government workfare program reaching over 100 million people found that paying women benefits directly into their own financial institution account increased women’s financial control, and incentivized them to find employment, compared to those paid in cash (SDG 5).

  • In Tanzania, water payment digitization dramatically cut average water-collection waiting times, from three hours to 10 minutes, benefiting women who are usually in charge of water collection by allowing them to pursue more productive activities (SDG 6).

  • In Kenya, using a digital mobile platform, 1.3 million farmers greatly raised their profits in 2021, and were able to build their capacity to weather external shocks (SDG 13).

  • In Mexico, digitizing tax payments raised overall tax revenue and social security contributions by about 95%, to almost $140 billion between 2010 and 2016 (SDG 16).

Digital financial inclusion, when done responsibly, not only drives growth, but also advances the Sustainable Development Goals, helping reach financial equality for women.

This compendium is a collaboration between the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands), the United Nations-based Better Than Cash Alliance, the United Nations Capital Development Fund, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) and the World Bank.