Pathways to Enhancing Financial Inclusion (PEFI) in India

The objective of the Pathways to Enhancing Financial Inclusion (PEFI) project is to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in India. PEFI will accomplish this mission by providing support to NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog, the policy think tank of the Government of India.

MSC has been working to enhance the status of six selected indicators of financial inclusion in 27 aspirational districts across eight states in India. The project involved stationing financial inclusion coordinators in each district. These coordinators have been working with the existing government and banking machinery to support, develop, and customize models of financial inclusion to achieve the following objectives:

1. Improve the uptake of financial inclusion programs of the government;
2. Deliver effective financial education and improve financial awareness;
3. Strengthen the grievance resolution mechanism;
4. Improve the uptake and usage of financial inclusion programs by women.

The project has directly affected 44 million lives in the 27 aspirational districts. See here for a short description of the project, and learn more about one of our action research projects on a community-inspired and volunteer-led model of Digital Mitras in a block of the Varanasi district.

Read this note for the latest updates from this project.