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Building livelihoods
Case study

Building livelihoods: Participant journeys and impacts

The building livelihoods programme is a modified financial graduation project that emphasises market-based programme components to increase cost-effectiveness and potential for scale. The aim of the programme is to help those living in extreme poverty build sustainable livelihoods through business to enable them to live above the ‘survival threshold’, whereby households can meet basic food needs without external assistance (Fitzgibbon & Cabot Venton, 2014).

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Blog
Case study

Corona case studies: Loss of income, loss of pride

They were making only about Ksh 4,000 per month (about $40) the last time we saw them in 2015.

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Blog
Case study

When hustling fails: The impact of coronavirus mitigation efforts on ordinary people’s livelihoods

Unlike many Kenyans, Esther in rural Makueni is not yet too worried about the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) on her livelihood. 

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Blog
Case study

Case study: The future of government-to-person (G2P) payments: Innovating for customer choice in Kenya

In 2018, Kenya’s Ministry of Labour and Social Protection launched the newest phase of its social safety net programme Inua Jamii with an audacious goal: provide all beneficiaries with a full bank account and offer them a choice among four financial services providers.

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Blog
Case study

Corona case studies: Kibarua crunch

William lives in a small house in an informal settlement in Mombasa.  When we saw him last in 2015, he had recently married his girlfriend. 

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Blog
Case study

Corona case studies: “If I had food, I would close the shop”

Millicent, 44, and Amos, 45, live in Eldoret with their 17-year-old daughter.  Amos has been working as a matatu driver and bus conductor for many years.  Millicent ran a small restaurant during the Diaries, but is now selling plastic wares from a small Mali Mali shop and knitting sweaters, which she sells mostly at back-to-school time.

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Blog
Case study

The use of mobile money technology: a dividend or disaster for FSAs?

This is the third blog in a series about Financial Service Associations (FSAs) and their potential for growth and customer value creation based on an FSD Kenya commissioned survey by BFA.  Read the first blog here: Financial services associations: an imperfect solution and the second blog here: FSA asset financing: when paying more yields more.

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Blog
Case study

FSA asset financing: when paying more yields more

This is the second blog in a series about Financial Service Associations (FSAs) and their potential for growth and customer value creation based on an FSD Kenya commissioned survey by BFA. The survey took place in 2017 in Bamba, Kakeani and Mukuyuni and involved in-depth interviews with over 60 respondents including customers, their non-member neighbours and FSA staff. 

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Blog
Case study

Financial services associations: an imperfect solution

This is the first blog in a series about financial services associations based on an FSD Kenya commissioned survey by BFA.

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Payments
Case study

Person-to-government (P2G) payment digitisation: Lessons from Kenya

This study was originally published by GSMA on their wesbite.

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Blog
Case study

How much does it cost to run bank accounts in Kenya?

Although this question seems simple and straightforward, answering it is more difficult than it looks.

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Annual lectures
Case study

3rd FSD Kenya Public annual lecture 2017 – John Kay

Over 250 policymakers, industry players, regulators, lecturers, students, financial sector analysts, development practitioners and other guests gathered at the National Museum’s Louis Leakey Auditorium on Thursday 9th February 2017 for the 3rd FSD Kenya annual lecture on financial inclusion.

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Consumer insights
Case study

Losing a big bet: Annette

At 29, Annette is already a widow.  When we met her, she lived in a rented house now near a shopping centre along the main road in Vihiga.  Her in-laws were never very fond of her, and after her husband’s death they chased her off the land where the two were living.

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Consumer insights
Case study

Finance & fortune

How exactly do financial services impact low income Kenyans? In this note, we extract the stories of eight respondent households from the Financial Diaries.

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Consumer insights
Case study

Renting and brewing on the road to growth: Stella & Duncan

Duncan was born in the rural community in Vihiga where he still lives today.  His father died when he was six years old.  His mother struggled to take care of her children alone.  Because of that financial pressure, Duncan did not go to high school and instead began working from a young age.

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Consumer insights
Case study

At last, independence: Lucy

For Lucy, the trouble started early.  As exams approached at the end of primary school, her parents were fighting.  Her father was drinking a lot and had a number of mistresses.  They quarreled openly; nothing was normal at home.

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Consumer insights
Case study

Hustle pays off: Matthew

Matthew has been a hustler for as long as he can remember.  He did well in primary school and wanted to go on to a good secondary school.  But, his mother at home was paralyzed and couldn’t work.  His father, he says, “Is just a farmer, you know.  He doesn’t take this issue of school seriously.” 

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Consumer insights
Case study

New income & new burdens: Henry & Naomi

Henry, one of eight children, was only able to go to school until form two, the second year of secondary school, when his parents had to pull him out because they could no longer afford the fees. 

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Consumer insights
Case study

Mounting responsibilities in old age: Janet & Joseph

Janet and Joseph have been together for 50 years.  Janet had been in school up to class seven, when she dropped out, pregnant with their first child.  She was eighteen years old.  They stayed together at Joseph’s rural home for a few years until he decided to move to Kericho and look for work. 

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Consumer insights
Case study

Struggling for School Fees: Magdalene

Compared to most households in her community in Makueni, Magdalene has been doing pretty well.  She earned most of her income in the Diaries from selling clothes on market days around the county. 

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Consumer insights
Case study

From the ghetto to the good Life: Ernest & Greta

Ernest grew up in a rural area in Kenya’s Central region and help from family enabled him to move to Nairobi for accounting studies in 1998 after finishing high school.  He completed Certified Public Accounting training up to section four, but found it hard to get a job.  In 2003, he found himself desperate. 

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Consumer insights
Case study

Small “b” biashara

Self-employment is a major source of income for low income Kenyans, and Financial Diaries respondents are no exception. When we talked to respondents in 2015, two years after the close of the original Diaries, those whose economic lives were improving pointed to business returns as one of the main drivers of their success.

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Consumer insights
Case study

Trickling down & climbing up

In late 2015, we followed up with Financial Diaries households to check in on their economic lives two years after the initial Diaries study ended. We wanted to know how they are doing now, the factors driving changes in their economic lives, and the role that financial services and financial choices were playing in their economic trajectories.

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Credit market development
Case study

Credit on the cusp: Strengthening credit markets for upward mobility in Africa

Enthusiasm around the once-popular “Africa Rising” narrative is abating in the face of slower-than-expected growth, macro volatility deriving from continued reliance on raw material exports in many countries, and the reality of persistently high inequality.

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Government and regulators
Case study

FSD Kenya: Ten years of a market systems approach in the Kenyan finance market

Kenya is seen widely as a ‘stand out’ success story on financial inclusion. The ten-year period from 2005 to 2015 witnessed enormous change in the financial sector.

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Publications
Case study

Opportunities for financing the mango value chain: A case study of lower eastern Kenya

Despite strong growth in Kenya’s mango subsector, there is scant documentation of the financial performance of the value chain.

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