The ability to make payments on a mobile phone has transformed peoples’ lives, especially in developing countries. But what lies ahead for mobile money and its applications for financial inclusion? That may depend on who is using it.

On October 10, CGD, in collaboration with the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), held a workshop in Mexico City to discuss CGD’s innovative tool that serves to diagnose the crucial impediments to digital financial inclusion in specific country contexts. There, we shared a draft of CGD’s&nb...

Despite a broad recognition that increased access to financial services can bring significant benefits to the poor, catalyzing economic development, financial inclusion in emerging markets and developing economies continues to lag far behind expectations. While a large number of countries have ...

We prepared bite-sized summaries of every available paper from this year’s North East Universities Development Consortium annual conference.

Ethiopia has its sights set on becoming Africa’s next tech hub, rivalling Nairobi, Lagos, and Cape Town. But in its quest for digital supremacy, Ethiopia will need to take steps to create an enabling environment for the digital startup sector, which across Africa is driven in large part b...

I’ve been given two kinds of arguments in support of not borrowing for social sector projects. The first is about their ability to repay the borrowing by generating enough foreign exchange.  And the second is skepticism about the productivity of government spending in these areas. Let me ...

As Basel III is transforming the global financial landscape, we hope that policymakers from both advanced economies and EMDEs, as well as multilateral organizations, can work together effectively to ensure that Basel III truly becomes a global public good—promoting financial stability and supp...