Jeannette Gurung attended the workshop on Facilitating Inclusive Financial Markets held on 2 Dec in Bangkok. The workshop was organized by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) and United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and discussed the principles of undertaking a market systems approach for financial inclusion projects. The objective of the workshop was for the participants to
- Understand the key principles of a market systems approach;
- Improve ability to utilize market systems principles in program planning and implementation;
- Identify and improve areas of collaboration between program and donors in addressing barriers to financial inclusion.
The CGAP is a global partnership of 34 leading organizations that seek to advance financial inclusion. Housed at the World Bank, CGAP combines a pragmatic approach to responsible market development with evidence based advocacy platform to increase access to the financial services the poor need to improve their lives. Currently, CGAP is in the final stage of developing a Measuring Market Development handbook for funders and their implementers. The handbook aims to provide practical guidance and tools on developing measurement systems appropriate for financial inclusion programmes that take a market system development approach.UNCDF has recently launched a market development program entitled Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformations (SHIFT).
In this workshop, CGAP also discussed its work on developing new measurement principles, tools and approaches that would help funders measure the impact of their interventions on market systems. CGAP and UNCDF will also collaborate to pilot and stress-test the measurement principles, tools and approaches through the SHIFT programme. These initiatives will culminate into a CGAP market systems measurement handbook for funders which will be released for public commentary in 2016.