Women-led micro and small enterprises (WMSEs) in Kenya’s open-air and cross-border markets can grow if they can unlock access to finance. We explored digital financial solutions, which yielded insights to improve the economic and financial lives of WMSEs.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) will distill the most effective pathways from these insights to scale the program on women’s access to DFS and its use across Kenya and replicate them in other East African and focus countries.
We aim to achieve the following:
Bundle financial solutions with non-financial services, such as financial literacy programs to enhance the value proposition for women-led MSEs.
Create a business case for financial service providers to offer more financial services to women, including having more female frontline staff and agents.
Motivate financial institutions to offer comprehensive financial services to women-led micro and small enterprises, such as credit and insurance.
Use project insights to upskill female entrepreneurs to understand digital financial services better and use them for business and personal growth.
Our approach is to enhance access and usage of digital financial services by women micro and small enterprises (WMSEs) in Kenya that operate from open-air and cross-border markets.