Around the world, women face interconnected challenges related to economic stability, access to healthcare, and nutrition. Development programs often address these needs in isolation, which limits their overall impact and sustainability. 

MSC (MicroSave Consulting) supported the Gates Foundations’ learning agenda on integration of health and nutrition within women’s economic empowerment (WEE) interventions. We built a strong evidence base and identified viable investment pathways for high-impact future programs. 

We mapped 48 interventions implemented by 27 organizations and microfinance institution (MFI) consortia across more than 30 countries to identify programs that integrate women’s economic empowerment with health and nutrition services. We applied filters aligned with the Gates Foundation’s health priorities to shortlist 10 organizations, and then conducted in-depth interviews with these organizations to assess implementation approaches, sustainability, and financing mechanisms. 

The analysis identified four effective models that integrate health and nutrition into WEE programs. Community health worker–led models deliver maternal, newborn, and child health services. These models showed an approximately 25% reduction in neonatal mortality and a 40% to 45% increase in care-seeking for maternal and newborn complications.  

The models that integrate health services within MFIs showed a threefold increase in uptake of preventive screenings and significant improvements in health knowledge. Health financing models delivered through MFIs, banks, and asset platforms increased overall healthcare utilization by 1.6 times and doubled facility-based deliveries. They also reduced catastrophic health expenditure by approximately 30%.  

Poverty graduation programs with integrated health support led to 5% to 8% higher household consumption, around 15% growth in productive assets, and improved household investment in health and nutrition. 

Digital solutions emerged as a cross-cutting enabler across all four models, which include teleconsultations, partnerships with digital health providers, and digital tools for community health workers. These solutions offer scalable pathways to expand integrated service delivery. 

Based on this research, MSC developed a comprehensive framework to guide future investments and program design that provides evidence-backed approaches to layer women’s economic empowerment with health and nutrition services. 

The Gates Foundation commissioned the project. 

MSC conducted research with BURO Bangladesh on agri-allied customers in four climate-vulnerable regions: Satkhira, Rangpur, Tangail, and Cox’s Bazar. The study assessed the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on livelihoods, customers’ coping and adaptive strategies, and their use of financial services to manage climate risks. It also explored their transactional behaviors, and demand for financial products. Based on the findings, we recommended ways for BURO and other MFIs to strengthen services and enhance customer resilience to climate change.

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From reactive coping to adaptive resilience amid climate change

India’s smallholder farmers struggle with growing exposure to climate risks driven by erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts, and unseasonal weather patterns. These challenges lead to yield losses, which increase input costs and reduce incomes. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices, such as drip irrigation, solar pumps, and biodigesters, offer a pathway to resilience. However, adoption remains constrained due to high upfront costs, limited access to affordable financing, and perceived risks among regulated financial institutions.

MSC was engaged to unlock microfinance and regulated lending for CSA and address these challenges. We were tasked to develop standardized financing products, build feasibility evidence, and support financial institutions to lend for prioritized CSA practices.

As the lead technical partner, MSC conducted a comprehensive landscaping of CSA technologies and mapped key solutions to priority crops and geographies. The team identified suitable borrower segments, aligned them with relevant CSA technologies, and assessed associated credit and operational risks for financial service providers.

MSC adopted our repurpose, rejig, and reinvent (3R) framework to transform existing microfinance products into climate-smart financing solutions. We conducted rapid institutional assessments to onboard four microfinance institutions (MFIs), helped align program objectives, and supported the execution of memorandums of understanding. This was followed by portfolio and value chain analyses, along with field visits to assess borrower demand. These insights informed the development of CSA financing product notes, operational processes, and service-level agreements between MFIs and CSA solution providers.

MSC also enabled partnerships between the MFIs and technology providers and conducted focus group discussions and key informant interviews for demand-side assessment and document insights. The project helped pilot the CSA financing products and laid the foundation for standardization and wider adoption across regulated financial institutions.

The initiative enabled scaling CSA lending through evidence generation and integration into MFI systems. The project generated a consolidated knowledge base on CSA financing practices. It highlighted scalable models and institutional pathways for wider adoption. In addition, dissemination engagements enabled stakeholder alignment on practical pathways for mainstreaming climate-smart agriculture financing across regulated financial institutions.

The International Sustainable Energy Foundation (ISEF) commissioned this project.

Adaptation finance worldwide remains significantly under-supplied relative to the scale of climate risk faced by low-income households and small enterprises. While public and concessional finance continue to play an important role, they are insufficient on their own to meet growing needs. Financial institutions often lack the evidence, product frameworks, and market intelligence needed to identify viable opportunities, understand the adaptation needs of clients, and respond to the real and perceived risks of serving vulnerable populations.

FSD Kenya, with support from the Gates Foundation, engaged MSC to lead a six-country initiative to address this gap across Sub-Saharan Africa. The initiative sought to strengthen the evidence base for inclusive climate finance. It was initially launched in Kenya and Mozambique as Phase 1 and later expanded to Ethiopia, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Tanzania as Phase 2. The initiative also sought to understand how financial systems could better support low-income households to adapt to climate risks and identify viable pathways to scale private-sector engagement.

MSC designed and piloted a livelihoods-centric analytical framework to support this initiative. The framework linked climate risks, adaptation pathways, and household financial needs to potential financial sector responses. The methodology combined livelihood segmentation, adaptation-to-finance mapping, financial-gap analysis, and a structured taxonomy to assess where financial services could play a meaningful role. Across the six countries, MSC conducted desk research, stakeholder consultations, and market analysis to identify priority livelihood segments, household adaptation pathways, and the financial and non-financial constraints that shape resilience.

A key feature of our work was cash flow analysis of selected adaptation solutions and livelihood strategies to assess business viability, investment readiness, and points of market failure. This helped distinguish where financing gaps reflect weak commercial viability or high risks, where they stemmed from product design or delivery constraints, and where blended or catalytic approaches may be required.

The project generated country diagnostics, market-frontier maps, and actionable recommendations to catalyze commercial finance for locally led adaptation measures. The outputs from our work identified promising product pathways, policy and technical assistance levers, and financial institution pipeline opportunities. These also provide a replicable framework that donors, financial institutions, and ecosystem actors can use to shape more inclusive and climate-responsive adaptation finance markets.

FSD Kenya commissioned the project with the Gates Foundation’s support.

Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Fiji, Lao PDR, and Nepal face high climate vulnerability due to their reliance on climate-sensitive livelihoods and exposure to extreme weather risks. Despite the availability of global and national frameworks, such as the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), implementation remains fragmented in these geographies. Policy ecosystems are often weak. Institutional capacity to design and implement inclusive climate finance is limited, and financial systems struggle to translate climate priorities into viable investment pipelines. As a result, adaptation finance flows remain insufficient and misaligned with local needs.

The Inclusive Climate Finance for Vulnerable Communities in the Asia-Pacific (ICCAP) initiative brought together the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), the Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (APRACA), and Appui au Développement Autonome (ADA) as a multi-country and multi-package program to address these gaps. It sought to catalyze more than EUR 250 million in public and private finance. The project worked to strengthen the pipeline from policy to capital to last-mile delivery, so that funds reach vulnerable communities. The Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (APRACA) engaged MSC as an international consultant to provide technical leadership on the policy and institutional backbone of the initiative.

Since 2025, MSC has been supporting national consultants under the ICCAP initiative on policy and regulatory diagnostics, stakeholder engagement, and knowledge synthesis through a four-phase approach:

1. Diagnostics and mapping: Review of policy and regulatory frameworks, identification of gaps, and stakeholder mapping;
2. Benchmarking and design: Synthesis of global best practices and development of country-specific policy recommendations and action plans;
3. Engagement and cocreation: Ongoing policy dialogue, validation of findings, and co-development of solutions with stakeholders;
4. Capacity building and scale: Strengthening of institutional capacity through training, regional exchange, and support for policy adoption and implementation.

Through this approach, MSC supports countries to move from fragmented policy environments toward more coherent, evidence-based, and implementation-ready climate finance systems that can better channel resources to vulnerable communities.

The Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (APRACA) and the International Climate Initiative (IKI) commissioned this project.