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Blog Post

Can Digital Transfers Empower Mothers? The Case of Bangladesh’s Primary Education Supplement Program (PESP)

Alan Gelb et al.

February 10, 2023

Historically, social assistance payments were often distributed in cash at designated payment points—government offices, community meetings, or schools. More recently, payments have increasingly been distributed digitally, through bank accounts or mobile wallets.

POLICY PAPERS

Can Digital G2P Payments Increase Financial Inclusion and Empower Women? Evidence from PESP in Bangladesh

Alan Gelb et al.

February 10, 2023

Bangladesh’s Primary Education Stipend Program provides stipends for 13 million primary schoolchildren to 10 million mothers. In 2017 the method of payment changed from cash to mobile money. This study considers the experience of the mothers with the shift to mobile money, and to the change in payme...

Blog Post

Does Choice Empower G2P Recipients? Insights from Kenya’s Inua Jamii Program

Alan Gelb et al.

January 19, 2023

Kenya has become a poster child for digitally driven development. Known as “Silicon Savannah,” the country has a multi-billion-dollar tech industry that routinely produces startups. Among its most prominent successes is M-Pesa. Launched in 2007, the mobile wallet service revolutionized how Kenyans t...

POLICY PAPERS

Models of Social Payments through Inua Jamii

Alan Gelb et al.

January 19, 2023

This study surveys Kenya's electronic payment system for social benefits, Inua Jamii, from the perspective of recipients, including their views on convenience and the benefits from competition. It also considers whether these digital G2P payments programs have increased financial inclusion more gene...