Unlocking Financial Inclusion for Refugee Women in Uganda and Kenya: A Market Systems Analysis of Barriers and Enablers
Four years ago, the Impact-Linked Fund for Gender-Inclusive Fintech (ILF GIF) was launched to support fintechs and financial service providers in designing products and services for underserved migrant women and their families. Funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the fund established an Ecosystem Enabler pillar, managed by iGravity, to strengthen the capacity of ecosystem actors working at the intersection of financial inclusion, gender, and migration.
Four accelerator and incubation programs later, and after working with more than 80 fintechs and financial institutions, one trend became increasingly evident: refugee women were significantly underrepresented among the clients reached by these providers.
Why? This simple question became the starting point for our latest research.
We’re pleased to share our new report, Unlocking Financial Inclusion for Refugee Women in Uganda and Kenya: A Market Systems Analysis of Barriers and Enablers, developed under ILF GIF.
The report explores why refugee women remain excluded from formal financial services despite high levels of mobile money adoption in both countries. Drawing on a Market Systems Development (MSD) framework and primary research with refugee women and ecosystem actors, it examines the structural barriers driving this exclusion and identifies five fintech-driven leverage points that could unlock meaningful progress toward financial inclusion.
This research contributes to ongoing efforts to advance refugee inclusion by providing practical insights for fintechs, financial institutions, policymakers, funders, and ecosystem actors to design, strengthen, and scale more inclusive financial solutions for refugee women.
