Making Digital Finance Work for Women in the MENA Region: 8 Lessons from the Field
- Partner: Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF), DAI, UK Department for International Development (DFID)
- Publication Type: Blog Post
- Date: April 13, 2020
- Team: Chloé Gueguen, Reham Gharbiyeh, Julia Hakspiel, Sabal Majal
- Recommended Citation:
Despite progress over the past few years, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region still has the largest gender gap in terms of women’s economic participation in the world. This economic divide also holds true for financial inclusion – only 35% of women have a financial account compared to 52% for men (Global Findex). While the challenges are significant, so are the opportunities. Innovative Digital Financial Services (DFS) have strong potential to accelerate women’s financial empowerment.
This blog builds on MarketShare Associates’ work supporting the Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF) to stimulate increased women’s economic empowerment through a market systems approach in Jordan and Egypt. Drawing from AWEF’s Practitioner Learning Brief, Making Digital Finance Work for Women in the MENA Region (2020), the authors explore opportunities and challenges of DFS and highlight eight lessons on how to design and implement interventions that can pave the way for women’s digital financial empowerment across the MENA region and more widely.
