Financial services associations (FSAs) are rural community-level member based semi-informal financial institutions, that are a hybrid of savings and credit cooperative organizations (SACCOs) and microfinance institutions (MFIs).

Our first blog in this series discussed the Hunger Safety Net Programme and savings groups (SGs), for which we’ve also sought to use market based approaches. Part Two, discusses the use of a market based approach in graduation programmes.

The impact of the recent six-month drought is readily apparent. The earth is dry and cracked and most of the trees and shrubs are barren. Riverbeds are full of dried branches and the livestock that roam the area are but skeletons, with many dead along the road.

Africa is the continent that will experience the effects of climate change first and worst. Which is why, on World Environment Day, we are pleased that Kenya is a leader in both rural electrification and clean energy innovation.

FSD Kenya and CARE Kenya jointly designed a project for implementation in Laisamis, Marsabit county, applying the graduation approach. The objective of the project is to test use of market based approaches to building the livelihoods of poor households.

I spent a week in Kenya, courtesy of Financial Sector Deepening, an initiative of a number of aid agencies, including Britain’s Department for International Development, the Swedish government, and the Gates Foundation. 

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.

Diversification of risk, not putting your eggs in one basket, hustling – whichever word or phrase you use, Robert, a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) rider, embodies this spirit.

The research is based on a long-term series of five surveys undertaken on M-Pesa in Kenya supported by FSD Kenya and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

This year’s annual lecture will be delivered by Rafe Mazer, a Financial sector specialist at CGAP.

Join us for what we expect will be a stimulating discussion on competition and consumer protection in Kenya’s financial sector.

This year, the price of a kilo of tea reached a five-year high. Every October, tea farmers in Kenya receive a “tea bonus”; the second lump sum payment for tea delivered to the Kenya Tea Development Authority (KTDA) during the year. The first lump sum, the “mini bonus”, is paid each April.

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

This is the second post in a three-post blog series introducing publications from our recently concluded Kenya Financial Diaries update study, conducted with BFA.

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.

Our third “Field Friday” exercise reveals lessons for formal financial service providers to learn from informal services.

Over the next three weeks, we will be releasing three publications based on findings from the Kenya Financial Diaries Update, a follow up study with the Kenya Financial Diaries households.

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.

This report draws on Financial Diaries data from India, Kenya, and Mexico to enhance the field’s understanding of women’s financial lives, and to highlight provider-led opportunities to better serve this important market segment.

This toolkit has been designed to help you generate solutions in many different fields of interest, from agriculture, to manufacturing, to banking and new technology.

This reports gives an overview of the major issues surrounding financial inclusion during 2015 and highlights 10 of our initiatives.