From reactive coping to adaptive resilience amid climate change

Posted on by Adityaraj

Bangladesh stands at the frontline of climate change. Cyclones, floods, droughts, erratic rainfall, and salinity intrusion are no longer rare events but recurring realities that erode livelihoods and threaten financial security.

For low-income households, climate shocks affect both livelihoods and the financial resources that support them. Each disaster disrupts the fragile balance of people’s daily lives as they save, borrow, and repay funds. The inclusive finance sector plays a vital role in this struggle. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) must now take up a dual role. They must extend credit to rural communities to support their livelihoods and help them withstand the climate stresses that erode them.

MicroSave Consulting (MSC) conducted research with BURO Bangladesh on its clients in four of the country’s most climate-exposed districts. The study reveals how households adjust their financial behaviors during crises, and how MFIs respond.

Our research highlights that households adopt distinct financial behaviors under climate stress:

  • Savings as the first lifeline: Families withdraw deposits to cover food, health costs, or repairs. Households consume their savings or resort to distress selling of their assets to meet their basic needs during climate events.
  • Loan demand collapses, then rebounds: During disasters, borrowing slows as incomes falter. Once the waters recede or markets reopen, the demand for loans surges. For instance, during April, households grapple with droughts and nor’westers that disrupt agricultural cycles, while in July and August, recurring heavy rainfall and floods frequently damage crops and homes, triggering a spike in loan requests for recovery and rebuilding.
  • Informal credit fills gaps: With savings depleted and formal loans delayed, many households are forced to turn to informal lenders, often at punishing rates that prolong debt cycles.
  • Women face higher barriers: Limited mobility, caution on the part of lenders, and caregiving duties restrict women’s access to credit when they need it most.

These behaviors align with the BRACED 3A framework, which defines resilience as people’s ability to anticipate, absorb, and adapt to climate shocks. Our study showed how households use a variety, and often a combination, of these strategies. See the figure below.

Yet, these strategies remain fragile without timely finance. Delayed liquidity undermines anticipation, weakens absorption, and postpones adaptation. If households’ coping strategies are weak without financial support, MFIs play a crucial role in shaping resilience. BURO Bangladesh’s practices illustrate a balance of caution and compassion:

  • Repayment deferrals and paused disbursements protect liquidity and prevent defaults.
  • Emergency “hand” loans, small and rapidly disbursed, are meant to cover essentials. However, the maximum loan amounts are often inadequate to meet the demand.
  • Flexible savings withdrawals from both BURO’s open-access current accounts and, in the face of disaster, even from restricted contractual savings schemes, prioritize survival and recovery over rules.
  • Operational shifts involve staff pivoting to relief activities and client support in disaster-hit areas.

These measures provide vital safety nets. Yet, they are often reactive and kick in after the damage has already been done. They enable survival, but rarely long-term adaptation. BURO’s approach reflects the typical reactive pattern across Bangladesh.

MFIs operate under immense constraints when disasters strike. BURO notes that after disasters, many households seek loans from multiple providers, which raises the risk of over indebtedness. BURO slows disbursements to prevent this and focuses on capacity-based lending, even as the demand for credit surges—not always for productive use but often for basic survival. Repayment deferrals offer clients breathing space, but delay cash flows, increase provisioning, and, in some cases, lead to loan losses.

Operational realities compound these financial strains. Flooded roads and damaged infrastructure limit access to branches and the mobility of field officers, while power cuts disrupt day to day branch operations and service delivery in drought-prone areas. The burden falls especially hard on women, who face health risks and must shoulder caregiving duties, which reduce their ability to engage financially during crises. These experiences underscore the delicate balance MFIs must navigate as they safeguard clients’ survival and protect their own sustainability. These barriers highlight a critical gap: While MFIs support households to absorb shocks, they are not yet adequately enabling them to anticipate or adapt effectively.

Global experience offers powerful lessons for Bangladesh on how inclusive finance can move from reactive relief to proactive resilience. One major gap is insurance. The Microinsurance Network’s 2023 report shows that while approximately 330 million people across 36 countries now have some form of inclusive insurance, nearly 88% of vulnerable households worldwide still lack coverage.

The InsuResilience Global Partnership reported that 319 million people benefitted from climate and disaster risk finance in 2024, with micro-level beneficiaries in low-income countries almost doubling year on year. This momentum could be harnessed more effectively in Bangladesh through MFIs and their agent networks to extend protection to those most exposed.

Global evidence also shows that anticipatory action is most effective when finance is pre-arranged and automatically triggered. The International Federation of Red Cross has shown how pre-agreed thresholds unlock funds before disasters strike. BRAC tested this approach in Bangladesh, where households pre-approved for emergency loans maintained 9% higher consumption levels after floods than those without access. New initiatives, such as Atram.ai, are further advancing this logic through AI-driven models that trigger financing for households and small businesses before climate shocks occur.

Finally, capital must be scaled to create systemic resilience. Small, fragmented loans need to be aggregated into investable pools. Regulators and supervisors are starting to recognize this: The Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) has urged the integration of climate adaptation into financial supervision to create structures that allow microloans to be bundled, de-risked, and financed at scale. Such approaches could help bridge the protection gap and simultaneously give MFIs the resources they need to serve clients in increasingly volatile conditions. The message is clear: Proactive finance reduces losses and strengthens resilience far more than reactive aid.

The experience of BURO Bangladesh and its clients shows both resilience and strain. Families often rely on savings, loans, and informal networks to make ends meet. Meanwhile, MFIs provide lifelines through repayment deferrals, emergency loans, and flexible withdrawals. Yet, these measures remain mostly reactive and help people survive, rather than preparing them for the future.

As climate shocks intensify, the current approaches will no longer be enough. Inclusive finance in Bangladesh must move beyond coping to strengthen households’ ability to anticipate, absorb, and adapt. The next blog ‘How Bangladesh can shift from reaction to resilience in climate finance for vulnerable communities’ in this series will ask what MFIs, regulators, and development partners must do to shift from reactive responses to systemic resilience, and what tools can help close the adaptation finance gap.

 

The building blocks of AgriStack – State farmer registry

Posted on by Adityaraj

This blog builds upon our previous exploration of Agristack: A DPI approach to transform Indian agriculture. Here, we address a fundamental question that affects millions of people: Who is a farmer, and how much land do they own? This blog further examines why India needs a unified farmers’ registry and how this registry is being created.

Countless farmers in India define their entire livelihood in terms of their relationship with the land. Yet, many cannot prove this relationship when it matters the most. Each government program, loan application, or support program demands fresh documentation, a cycle of manual verification that is slow, costly, and frequently ineffective. AgriStack offers a pathway to transform this, anchored on foundational registries, including the state farmer registry.

The farmer registry consists of unique farmer IDs assigned to all the owners of agricultural land parcels in the land records, often referred to as the record of rights. The farmer ID is a 10-digit number followed by a checksum digit, and it contains the farmer’s key details. These include the farmer’s name, their Aadhaar number, the plot area, and the plot number, among others, of all the land parcels owned by the farmer across the state. The farmer registry links the farmer ID with the land parcels to verify the farmer’s identity.

Currently, the farmer registry only includes land-owning farmers, despite India’s agricultural sector also comprising numerous tenant farmers and sharecroppers. It does not include those involved in allied activities, such as livestock, dairy, or fisheries. However, the Government of India plans to expand the registry to include them as well, which will ensure that all types of farmers are recognized and can access relevant government programs and services.

A comprehensive farmer registry is essential because, without it, neither the central nor the state governments have a clear understanding of who qualifies as a farmer. This leads to inefficiencies in policy planning, resource allocation, and subsidy distribution, among other areas. The struggle is even more intense for small and marginal farmers, as they face difficulties when they seek to obtain a digitally verified land ownership certificate. The absence of this certificate limits their ability to access agricultural services. This lack of reliable data also weakens the delivery of key agricultural services, such as insurance payouts, input subsidies, and credit access.

States do not currently link farmer databases to official land title records, which leads to incorrect identification of the farmers and the exact size of their land. The farmer registry will connect directly to state land title records so that there is consistency in farmer records and any change in land ownership is automatically updated for each farmer.

To address this, the government has outlined a six-step process for creating the farmer registry:

 

State readiness   

Digitized land records serve as the foundation of the farmer registry. As a first step, a joint committee comprising of members from central and state governments is formed to ensure proper oversight. After this, the state government appoints a state-level nodal officer and technical coordinator to manage operations and technical needs. The government also establishes a project management unit to monitor progress and ensure adherence to timelines.

State land title records data provisioning   

Next, the state assigns unique farmland plot IDs to each farmland plot in the land title records to enable accurate mapping. The majority of the states in India have developed and integrated a unified land API to transfer land title records smoothly. The unified API ensures the consistency and reliability of information across the farmer registry.

Bucketing

The state then consolidates land records within each village. It groups land parcels that belong to the same farmer for easier identification and verification. The state links data from multiple databases that are seeded with the national digital ID or Aadhaar to confirm farmer’s identity. These databases include the PM-KISAN, the cash transfer program, and the PM-FBY, the insurance program for farmers among others. This step ensures that the state can categorize lands accurately based on program data and minimizes duplication of efforts during field activities. Post bucketing, each farmer is assigned a “temporary farmer ID.”

Preparation for field activity

Pilot districts are selected to test and model the registration process, supported by trained master trainers. They lead implementation and build capacity among the field staff. The states conduct awareness campaigns to ensure widespread understanding and participation among farmers. These campaigns inform farmers about the registry, its advantages, and the registration process.

Land claim processing and farmer ID creation

Farmers claim their land buckets through self-registration, assisted registration, or by attending government camps. After registration, a farmer receives an enrolment number to monitor the status of their application in the farmer registry. State-specific policies are followed to verify the enrolment application. The policies focus on criteria, such as the name match score (NMS) and approval guidelines. NMS is essential to determine whether auto-approval is possible.The states categorize accuracy into three levels: excellent (80–100) for auto-approval, average (31–79) for manual verification, and poor (0–30) for correction before proceeding. A Farmer ID is then generated within 24 hours. Applications that do not qualify for auto-approval are subject to an on-field manual review.

Post go-live 

After the registry is operational, the state should keep land title records data updated with the latest information on land ownership. Ongoing system oversight and regular enhancements ensure the accuracy of data and the effectiveness of the farmer registry over time.

The state farmer registry will build a complete farmer profile once it is integrated with the georeferenced village maps and crop-sown registry. However, India faces several challenges in developing a unified farmer registry, as land is a state subject.

The following points highlight some of these key challenges.

  • Variation in the manner of maintenance of land records and taxonomy

There is significant variation in how states maintain and record land data, making it difficult to create a standard taxonomy or data format. For instance, the survey number is called “surnoc” in Karnataka and “khasra” in Uttar Pradesh. States also differ in how they record names and land details; some include aliases or salutations in the name field. Similarly, land IDs are recorded in different formats, such as 12/1 or 12-A. These inconsistencies make it challenging to electronically integrate land records, ensure data accuracy, and develop interoperable digital systems.

  • Land title records are not updated in real time

The level of land records digitization and its maturity differ across states due to incomplete, inconsistent digitization and delays in updating land title records. In many cases, mutations are not linked to the digital system, causing mismatches between physical and online records. Often, the next of kin do not update ownership details after a death, and land use changes, such as conversion from agricultural to non-agricultural, are not recorded. These gaps result in outdated and unreliable land records, making accurate verification and integration difficult.

  • Field verification and consent collection from the farmers

State government authorities, such as Agriculture Extension Officers, Village Revenue Officers, etc., struggle to locate farmers for field verification and collect their consent due to migration. Many people from nearby cities purchase agricultural land as an investment and are not physically present in the village. Moreover, revenue officers also do not know who owns some land parcels. These issues result in unverified farmers in the farmer registry.

  • Aadhaar-linked challenges:

A farmer’s Aadhaar number is used to link all the land parcels they own. However, challenges arise when some farmers do not have an Aadhaar, such as minors or elderly individuals unable to enroll, or when their Aadhaar details, like mobile number or address, are outdated. These gaps make it difficult to link and verify land ownership records accurately.

These issues hinder efforts to verify and update the identities and addresses of farmers when state governments create the farmer registry. 

 

In summary, the farmer registry improves transparency and targeting, but advanced features like personalized advisory services, better market access, and customized financial products are possible only when it is linked with georeferenced village maps and crop-sown registries.

Together, these form the complete building blocks of AgriStack and power a more inclusive digital ecosystem for agriculture.

  • Record of Rights (RoR): It is a document that contains essential information about land ownership, usage rights, and legal claims. It helps establish clear property rights, which makes it easier to resolve disputes, conduct property transactions, and assess land taxes.
  • Aadhaar is India’s foundational ID system for residents. It is a 12-digit number linked to biometrics and used to authenticate identity for a wide range of services.
  • Mutation means the recording in the revenue record of transfer of rights of the property from one person to others.

 

AgriStack: A DPI approach to transform Indian agriculture

Posted on by Adityaraj

An invisible crisis is strangling Indian agriculture, a sector that sustains about 40% of the country’s people and contributes 18% to its GDP. Millions of India’s farmers remain trapped in a system that does not recognize them, even though agriculture remains their main and often only identity. Farmers work tirelessly to ensure that the country’s diverse population has access to food and nutrition. Yet, it faces ongoing challenges that hold back its full potential. Low productivity from outdated farming methods, degraded soil, and fragmented landholding limit the benefits of scale. Additionally, farmers face post-harvest losses due to poor storage and weak market linkages. Price fluctuations and exploitation by middlemen also affect their earnings and financial resilience.

Tackling these issues requires stronger systems that begin with better information on farmers and their activities. Farmers often struggle to prove their identity as cultivators, the land they own, or the crops they grow, because verified and trustworthy records are missing. Databases are static, fragmented, and vary across states, which leaves farmers dependent on repeated manual checks. Without reliable real-time data, every new scheme or service requires fresh verification, making access slow and costly. This not only delays support but also increases the expense for both government and private providers. As the country grapples with climate change, population growth, and resource scarcity, digital technologies could be a transformative force.

The Indian government recognized the need for modernization and has introduced several initiatives to use technology in agriculture, one of the most significant of them being AgriStack. MSC (MicroSave Consulting) played an active role throughout this journey—from building digital registries and developing consent frameworks to piloting applications, ensuring that the system remains inclusive and that technology adoption delivers real, tangible benefits to farmers.

AgriStack is a federated digital public infrastructure (DPI) that comprises registries, datasets, application programming interfaces (APIs), and IT systems. It integrates digital databases and technologies to answer three core questions at the center of most issues that plague the agriculture sector:

  • Who is a farmer, and what is the extent of land they own?
  • Where are those land parcels located?
  • What crops does the farmer grow in each season on the land parcel?

The Government of India (GoI) has created three foundational registries to answer these three questions: The state farmer registry, the georeferenced village maps registry, and the crop sown registry. These registries are the foundation that integrates stakeholders and enhances Indian agriculture through data-driven digital services. MSC supported the design and validation of these registries by collaborating with farmers, agriculture and revenue departments, and technology partners to ensure their design was practical, scalable, and responsive to on-ground realities.

  1. State farmer registry: This registry records details of all the farmers in the state. The state farmer registries then federate at the central level and adhere to the defined standards to create a unique farmer ID. It is a crucial building block among the three registries. The ID creates a trusted database of farmers that ensures government support, subsidies, and financial aid target the intended beneficiaries. The system assigns each farmer a unique Farmer ID, which is a digitally verifiable credential and a functional ID based on Aadhaar as per the InDEA 2.0 (India Digital Ecosystem Architecture 2.0) framework. The farmer registry uses the revenue records or Records of Rights (RoR) data foundation.[1] The system dynamically links the registry to farmers’ land records, and the system updates the ownership of the land parcel based on the mutation of the land records. The registry does not confer land ownership rights. It solely identifies farmers as beneficiaries of various agricultural services.
  2. Georeferenced village maps registry: This registry combines the physical village cadastral maps with geographic information system (GIS) technology to answer the second question. It integrates the land parcel information contained in the revenue records with geographic coordinates. This allows the registry to spatially represent and digitally record cadastral boundaries and related attribute data on a map. This registry maps the geographical locations of the farmers’ plots to enable accurate land tracking for customized services.
  3. Crop-sown registry: The registry records information on various crops that farmers sow every season for all agricultural plots across the country. It maintains a historical plot-level record of crops that farmers plant in each cropping season and creates a comprehensive record of plot-level agricultural activity. It seeks to improve and streamline the previously prevalent paper-based methods of crop survey on a sample basis, as it introduces a smartphone-based digital survey on a census basis.

The diagram below shows how the AgriStack will function once the registries are interlinked:

The AgriStack system is based on the InDEA 2.0 principles, which include ecosystem thinking, reusable building blocks, open API standards, open-source development, and national portability. The system seamlessly integrates digital platforms across sectors to promote interoperability, innovation, and user-centric service delivery in India’s digital public infrastructure.

The AgriStack initiative is designed with a vision to simplify farmers’ access to agricultural services, which includes affordable credit, high-quality farm inputs, personalized advice, and convenient market linkages. It also seeks to streamline government planning and implementation of farmer-centric programs. The three core registries exist as the foundational building blocks of the AgriStack. Besides the three core registries, other major components of the AgriStack architecture (see Figure 1 below) include the data exchange layer called the Unified Farmer Service Interface (UFSI), consent manager, national agriculture applications, state applications, and private sector services.

IDEA concept paper.

Apart from the three core registries, the AgriStack architecture also integrates agricultural data from multiple sources, which include government schemes, private sector partners, market prices, weather information, and research repositories. AgriStack integrates existing systems and consolidates various services to enable farmers to access suitable assistance at the right time. The UFSI helps keep all farmers’ information organized and private, with a consent manager that ensures that data is only used with the farmer’s agreement.

The AgriStack operates as a federated system that ensures that ownership of the three registries remains with the respective states. The system has a strong focus on privacy and adheres to the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act of 2023. Per the strict guidelines of the DPDP Act, authorized data seekers can only access data after they obtain explicit consent from the farmers.

The AgriStack follows the UIDAI’s regulations and encrypts and securely stores sensitive data, which includes Aadhaar details, in designated vaults. States strictly adhere to the guidelines established by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) when they manage and store data to strengthen data security further. This strong consent management framework ensures data privacy, security, and transparency within the AgriStack ecosystem. MSC played a facilitative role in shaping the architecture by first supporting the definition of data schemas and the incorporation of Metadata and Data Standards (MDDS) to ensure uniformity across states, then contributing to the design of consent flows and interoperability standards that make AgriStack usable across multiple stakeholders.

Once the AgriStack is fully developed and has access to data from public and private databases, it will create a single digital ecosystem for the agricultural sector and enable digital solutions across the entire agriculture value chain (see Figure 2). Farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Kerala, Maharashtra, and Odisha will be able to use their digitally verifiable farmer ID issued under the AgriStack to access pre-approved, paperless credit from various public sector banks.

It will provide farmers with easier access to government programs, advice, and markets. At the same time, the government can improve the efficiency of targeted interventions. Based on the principles of AgriStack, the Government of Bihar has developed the Bihar-Krishi application as a one-stop digital platform to empower farmers with easy access to vital agricultural resources and services. Private companies can also make better data-based decisions and have more scope to develop new ideas.

We will go into further detail about the creation of the three foundational registries in the following blog posts. The first, “Building blocks of AgriStack: State farmer registry,” will explain how and why it is important to create a unified farmer registry in India. The second, “Building blocks of AgriStack: Georeferenced village maps registry,” will detail the creation of geo-referenced digital maps. The third, “Building blocks of AgriStack: Crop sown registry,” will cover the significance of a crop sown registry and how to develop one.

 

How women dairy farmers in Bihar are building fairer and stronger markets through collective action

Posted on by Adityaraj

A quiet revolution is brewing in the small village of Manikpur in India’s Bihar state. Ruby Devi, a 34-year-old woman and a mother to four children, leads a story of empowerment and transformation. Her vision now reshapes the economic landscape for women dairy farmers in her community. What began as her effort to secure a fair price for milk has grown into a thriving enterprise that employs more than 30 women dairy farmers and connects them directly to formal markets. Her journey reveals how targeted financial support and collective action can improve the lives and livelihoods of entire communities.

Structural barriers that women dairy farmers face

India is the world’s largest milk producer. The country generates around 239 million tons of milk annually and provides livelihood opportunities to nearly 80 million people. Women perform nearly 70% of the work in India’s dairy sector as they feed and care for livestock.

Bihar, a state that produced around 12 million tons of milk in 2024, holds significant potential for dairy-led growth. Yet, the state’s dairy sector faces unique challenges. Although dairy farming is a key part of the rural economy, it remains largely unorganized and dependent on small-scale farmers, most of whom are women. These women grapple with systemic barriers that limit their potential. They are often forced to sell milk to intermediaries who offer unfair prices.

Limited access to finance further hinders the growth of these women. They are unable to invest in productive assets, such as livestock, quality feed, or veterinary services. Poor infrastructure, such as limited cold storage and testing facilities, further compounded the problem. As a result, Bihar’s dairy industry remains underdeveloped and inefficient. For women like Ruby Devi, the absence of fair pricing and resources created a cycle of poverty that proved nearly impossible to break. However, Ruby, a member of a self-help group (SHG), had a vision for change that would improve her life and have a ripple effect on the entire community.

A vision for change  

Ruby’s journey began with the bold decision to cut out the intermediaries who had long controlled the milk market in her village. She created a direct market for the milk collected by the women dairy farmers in her community.

Ruby wanted to expand her dairy enterprise but required a larger amount of capital than what the SHG group loans could provide. Ruby accessed a  MUDRA loan under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana through an enterprise financing initiative supported by JEEViKA and MSC. This access to personal credit marked a turning point. She opened a milk collection center and invested in two buffaloes, an ambitious move in a rural economy where women frequently struggle to access resources for enterprise growth.

Before Ruby’s intervention, Manikpur’s women dairy farmers had no choice but to sell their milk to local vendors who paid just INR 40 (USD 0.48) per liter. This low, unfair price was a direct result of the inefficient supply chain, where the intermediaries absorbed a large share of the profits. Ruby recognized the exploitative nature of this system and decided to take action. She eliminated these intermediaries and allowed farmers to sell directly to her milk collection center.

The milk collection center is equipped with weighing scales and basic testing kits that enable transparent fat-content testing and fair pricing. The center serves as a direct milk procurement point within the village and allows the women dairy farmers to sell milk locally and retain a greater share of their earnings. Women also receive immediate cash payments after testing, which ensures transparency and trust.

The impact has been substantial. Farmers now earn INR 55 (USD 0.66) per liter from their previous earnings of INR 40 (USD 0.48), which represents a 30% increase in their income. This improvement also fueled significant business growth for Ruby. Her monthly turnover increased by more than 400%. It increased from INR 32,093 (USD 366) to INR 160,380 (USD 1,829). More than 30 women farmers now supply milk to her center. The initiative has strengthened the confidence and bargaining power of women in the area and provided them with a sense of financial stability that once seemed unattainable.

The role of collective action

Ruby’s success was not an isolated achievement. This effort focused on the power of collective action among women dairy farmers to create a stable market and improve the dairy supply chain in Bihar.

MSC helped women dairy farmers form milk cooperatives, where they could pool their resources and share knowledge. This collective action allowed them to establish five regional milk collection centers and address the fragmented nature of the dairy supply chain. The farmers worked together and could negotiate better prices, eliminate the exploitative role of intermediaries, and gain improved market access.

Through collective action, the farmers also connected with the State Milk Cooperative Federation, which provided valuable services, such as affordable cattle feed, vaccination, and artificial insemination. This strengthened the network and resources available to dairy farmers to ensure sustainable growth for their enterprises.

How one woman’s success transformed a community

Ruby Devi’s story reflects the strength of community-driven change. Through MSC’s intervention, Ruby and the other women in her cooperative have improved their incomes and gained greater financial independence. Many other disempowered women will learn from and follow their example.

The success in Manikpur demonstrates the potential for broader transformation across Bihar, home to more than 1 million women entrepreneurs, many of whom are members of self-help groups. Ruby’s story is one among many such examples of how access to dairy financing and collective action can unlock the economic potential of rural women and strengthen entire communities.

A future of opportunity

India’s White Revolution 2.0 calls for a dairy sector that truly includes all and empowers the country’s women. Ruby’s story offers valuable lessons that rural women can replicate across rural India. With targeted credit, local infrastructure, and technical guidance, women can strengthen dairy value chains and create dignified livelihood opportunities for others.

However, systemic challenges, such as unequal access to finance, limited control over assets, and a lack of formal market linkages, continue to hold women back. Institutions, cooperatives, and government programs must work together to address these gaps. Government initiatives, such as, need to help all those who are stranded by a lack of opportunities and structural help across various sectors.

Ruby Devi’s story in Manikpur demonstrates what becomes possible when systems recognize and support women. The transformation she sparked reveals that when women have the tools and trust to lead, change extends far beyond individual enterprises. With the right support, rural women can drive the next phase of India’s dairy growth.

A digital key to women’s credit: Integrating SHGs with India’s finance system

Posted on by harshita

As India deepens its journey toward inclusive growth, the next leap may lie in recognising the financial power of its women collectives. In this compelling article, Nishant Kumar, Global Lead – Startup Innovation and Acceleration at MSC, and Abhishek Varshney, Senior Lead – Partnerships at Sahamati, explore how integrating self-help group (SHG) records with the Account Aggregator framework can bridge a long-standing gap between grassroots enterprise and formal finance. Drawing on their rich experience in financial inclusion and digital innovation, they illustrate how this integration can transform SHG members from programme beneficiaries into financially visible, creditworthy individuals—unlocking access to credit, insurance, and investments, and setting the stage for a more equitable financial ecosystem.

A Digital Key to Women’s Credit: Integrating SHGs with India’s Finance System

India sits on a huge financial paradox. More than 100 million women participate in the world’s largest microfinance project through self-help groups. While self helpgroups (SHGs) receive support from the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) and participating banks, internal transactions data history among SHGs and members remains invisible to the formal banking system. This financial data lies trapped in government databases and is missed while measuring the creditworthiness of the SHG members by banks, insurers, or FinTechs eager to serve them.

This data can be made accessible by integrating SHG records with India’s Account Aggregator (AA) framework, which promises to transform financial inclusion by shifting access to credit and services from mere program membership to performance-based criteria.

SHGs have evolved far beyond their humble origins. Today, these groups have formed sophisticated multi-tier institutions with formal governance structures: Village Organizations (VOs), which are groups of SHGs that work at the grassroots level, and Cluster-Level Federations (CLFs), which operate at the block or sub-district level. The National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) supports these institutions through its digital platform, LokOS—a management information system that records savings, loan repayments, attendance, and training metrics across more than 9 million SHGs that have collectively accessed loans worth INR 2.54 trillion.

Yet, this treasure trove of financial behavior data remains locked away. NRLM-linked banks extend loans to borrowers based on historical performance. But there is an opportunity for members to showcase their SHG history to financial institutions to access additional support if needed.

Consider Lata Devi, a weaver from rural Jharkhand. She has faithfully repaid three internal SHG loans and maintained regular savings through her SHG for years. To any lenders, she represents an excellent credit risk. To the larger financial system, she does not exist.

India’s AA framework, launched by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), enables individuals and institutions to share their financial data across entities securely and with consent. By onboarding NRLM (via LokOS) as a financial information provider (FIP), a source of verified financial data, the SHG ecosystem could plug into this digital infrastructure.

This integration would enable consent-based data sharing between platforms that hold SHG records, such as LokOS, and those that deliver services like banks or government programs. It will bridge a critical gap in the ecosystem as paper trails turn into digital credentials that unlock formal financial access.

We return to Lata’s case here. With AA integration, she could share her SHG transaction history with a lender to secure working capital for her loom or with an insurer to enroll in an insurance plan tailored to her income cycle. She can become an independent financial actor, not just a beneficiary of group-based lending.

The benefits extend beyond individuals. Well-governed VOs and CLFs can use verified performance data to access market-based credit and diversify funds beyond government grants. This opens the road to partnerships with social impact investors and others who can now underwrite institutions based on objective metrics rather than subjective assessment.

Over time, verified SHG and federation-level performance data could be aggregated into standardized credit scores. Much like the Grameen Credit Score model, these scores would provide investors and lenders with an objective, risk-based lens to underwrite community institutions—moving beyond anecdotal assessments to data-driven trust.

Integration will require combined efforts. On the regulatory side, current AA rules restrict financial information providers to regulated entities, leaving out institutions like NRLM. A policy exception will be critical. On the technical front, group accounts demand new consent workflows, and LokOS records—often manually entered—may require stronger validation. Finally, trust must be built through privacy safeguards, opt-out choices, and robust grievance redressal. Without these, the promise of SHG–AA integration could falter.

Success demands concerted action from multiple stakeholders. The NRLM and the Ministry of Rural Development can champion pilot integrations in high-performance states. Sahamati can facilitate the development of consent workflows for community-based organizations.

Financial providers should come forward to leverage the data to underwrite SHG-tailored products through structured data. Meanwhile, technology partners should build multilingual interfaces for field agents and SHG members.

India’s SHG–AA integration is not just a financial innovation, but a social innovation. It marks a transition from eligibility to accountability. For millions of women like Lata, it means moving from surviving to thriving. For India, it offers a chance to set a global benchmark in inclusive finance—demonstrating how digital infrastructure can unlock the power of community institutions at scale.

This article was first published on “The CSR Universe” on 5th Nov 2025.

29th Conference of the Parties: Expectations, outcomes, and debates around major agenda items

Posted on by harshita

This article analyzes the expectations and outcomes of COP 29 held in Baku, Azerbaijan, focusing on the new climate finance goal, adaptation progress, and loss and damage mechanisms. It highlights how negotiations often compromise justice-based priorities of developing nations, particularly on finance quality and equity. The piece underscores the urgency of restoring trust, ambition, and fairness in global climate governance to keep the 1.5°C goal alive.

This article was first published on “CPRD” on 20th September, 2025.