Removing the barriers to financial inclusion

Our client

Our client is one of the world’s largest philanthropic organisations, with a broad portfolio of investments across the development ecosystem in Africa. Our client supports African partners whose bold ideas and creative approaches have the potential to save lives, improve health, and help families across the continent.

The client’s mission

The foundation believes in the transformative impact that access to inclusive (digital) financial services can have on marginalised communities. Our client works to broaden the reach of low-cost solutions by supporting the most catalytic approaches to financial inclusion. This includes promoting the uptake of innovative approaches and supporting the development of national and regional strategies that accelerate progress for the poor, as well as understanding and advocating for the removal of barriers to inclusion – in partnership with the broader ecosystem.

While Nigeria has made rapid progress – 64% of adults used formal financial services in 2023, up from 56% in 2020 – the country remains far from its goal of extending this to 95% of the population by 2024. Almost half of adults have no financial accounts.

Our support

Africa Practice is a partner for the foundation in Africa – we provide insights and strategic advisory to support the successful implementation of its goals, particularly across financial inclusion, education and healthcare.

For the last ten years, we have worked to support the foundation’s financial inclusion programme in Nigeria,  providing insights into policy and regulatory developments, convening ecosystem partners, and designing and delivering comprehensive advocacy campaigns to address critical barriers to inclusion. Our support included:

• Dataset identification, sourcing and management
• Dataset analysis and visualisation 
• Policy and regulatory insights and assessments
• Human-centred and data-led storytelling
• Influencer and champion identification and activation 
• Call to action design 
• Advocacy proof point development
• Ecosystem strengthening/community management
• Media and social media campaigning

The results

Nigeria continues to make progress towards its financial inclusion goals despite macroeconomic challenges, with our work directly contributing to the removal of significant barriers to access for marginalised communities. In partnership with our client, we have established sustainable and effective advocacy infrastructure that can continue to represent the interests of marginalised communities over the coming years.

These efforts have yielded tangible results: our engagements at the highest levels of government and the private sector have led to concrete buy-in for a national drive towards financial inclusion. We have observed marked changes in perceptions about the importance of broadening access to formal financial services to achieve strategic objectives outlined in the National Economic Growth and Recovery Plan.