Financial services programmes for the poor: verifying evidence for policymaking

A substantial portion of poor population in low- and middle-income countries (L&MICs) lives in rural areas. Inaccessibility to these areas pose a major challenge to poverty alleviation programmes such as financial services. To overcome these barriers, development organizations have designed a number of financial instruments to target the rural poor. While some research assesses the value of these instruments, questions remain around delivery, risk management and programme design.

To this end, donors and funders have been increasing their operations in the financial services space in L&MICs. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has invested over US$3 billion in rural finance. Current ongoing investments of approximately US$1.14 billion represent 13 percent of its portfolio. The Gates Foundation is also funding projects on increasing access to financial services for the poor. To ensure the research quality behind their programming, the Gates Foundation funded a 3ie replication grants window to independently reassess seven policy-relevant impact evaluations on financial services for the poor.