Advancing Financial Inclusion for Refugees & Forcibly Displaced People: Insights From the European Microfinance Award 2024
The paper begins with a primer on the topic: what is displacement and its drivers? How is displacement related to financial exclusion? What challenges do FDPs face, and what do providers face in seeking to serve them? And what are FDPs’ financial and non-financial needs depending on their phase of displacement?
The second part of the paper pivots from challenges to solutions, combining some theoretical insights with practical case examples from the ten EMA semi-finalists, and is itself split into sections that represent three broad organizational approaches to serving FDPs, with examples from the applicant organizations: 1. Designing and delivering services for FDPs; 2. Adapting operations and strategy; and 3. Changing the context.
The paper then presents some ‘lessons learned’ (in the words of the applicant organizations themselves) and concludes with ‘Factors for success: Eight insights on advancing the financial inclusion of FDPs’ — what the e-MFP Award team see as some of the factors that underpin excellence or innovation in this most important field.
