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This article was published by NextBillion on 13 August 2020.

Avoiding another crash: How global standards set after the 2008 crisis prepared the financial system to weather COVID-19

Editor’s note: This article is part of NextBillion’s series “Enterprise in the Time of Coronavirus,” which explores how the business and development sectors are responding to the pandemic. For news updates and analysis, virtual events, and links to useful…

Financial inclusion helps youth mitigate COVID-19 impact

By Mohanad Salous, Chief of Financial Inclusion Division, Palestine Monetary Authority, and Diana Schvarztein, Policy Manager, Financial Inclusion, AFI

The coronavirus pandemic has further exacerbated youth’s vulnerabilities and is likely to have a greater negative impact on young people’s livelihoods, particularly for those in developing countries.

Recognizing this,…

Social Commerce key to women empowerment in Bangladesh

By Bidhan Chandra Shaha, Deputy Director, Bangladesh Bank

“Social media deserves great appreciation not only because people are spending a lot of time on Facebook during COVID-19 pandemic, but also due to the fact that my business does not need to shut down for a single moment amidst the prolonged lockdown in the country,” revealed Anu.

Sumaiya Islam Anu is the founder of…

Inclusive Green Finance Resources National Financial Sector Strategies Regulators in the AFI network have begun responding, often with urgency, with strategies, policies and regulations to mitigate and build resilience to the impacts of climate change in their respective countries. There is an emerging trend in the network to link financial inclusion and climate change on a national strategic level, either in a National Financial Inclusion…

Mexico’s new accounting facility supports MSMEs

By Luis José Arredondo Heredia, General Director of Supervision of Savings and Loan Cooperatives, CNBV

Responding to the growing economic uncertainties amid COVID-19 restrictions, Mexico’s Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores (CNBV) recently launched a special accounting standard that allows financial intermediaries, such as banks, financial cooperatives, popular finance companies…

Empowering women via the G.R.I.D. Framework

By Helen Walbey, AFI Head Gender Inclusive Finance & Adeyemi Omotoso, Policy Specialist, FInTech, AFI

The financial inclusion gender gap of nine percent stubbornly persists in developing countries and nearly a billion women, globally, remain financially excluded. Ongoing barriers that led to this range from socio-cultural factors, lack of gender sensitive policies, limited ownership of…

Jordan quick to shield MSMEs amid COVID-19 downturn

By Waleed Samarah, Central Bank of Jordan

Since the early onset of the global pandemic, Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) has adopted ongoing preventive and supportive measures aimed at containing the negative repercussions of COVID-19 on the local economy. Furthermore, the central bank has facilitated the use of digital channels in financial transactions to help limit the spread of…

Financial literacy helps business stay open 

By Saiyad Hussain, Acting Chief Executive Office, Fiji Development Bank

Thanks to innovative thinking and financial literacy skills of entrepreneur Meena Gounden, award-winning Gopal’s Poultry Farm in Coqeloa, Labasa is weathering the COVID-19 pandemic crisis by staying open for business.

Meena is already thinking of ways to improve her business resilience by making plans for the “…

Impacts of COVID-19 on women and MSMEs in Zimbabwe

By Samuel Tarinda, Gender Researcher & Deputy Director in the Economic Policy & Research Division, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken all the countries of the world, almost instantaneously within the first quarter of 2020. In Zimbabwe, like in many other countries, we are beginning to observe some channels through which COVID-19 has, and will have,…

Can NFIS reach forcibly displaced persons?

By Micol Pistelli, Senior Financial Inclusion Coordinator, UNHCR and Mariam Jemila Zahari, Policy Analyst, AFI

Forcibly displaced persons (FDPs) must be incorporated into national financial inclusion strategies (NFISs), recognizing their special circumstances and legal status as an important deliberate step towards fully inclusive financial sectors.

According to the United Nations…