The USAID Women’s Economic Empowerment Community of Practice (USAID WEE CoP) held a learning event titled “Beyond Inclusion: User Protection for Women in the Digital Economy” on Thursday, March 30, 2023, from 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. Washington, DC time (ET).  While digital financial services have delivered substantial financial inclusion benefits and opportunities for women, they have also exacerbated user risks. 

Ms. Jamille Bigio, Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment at USAID opened the event with remarks on the recent launch of U.S. Global Strategy on Women’s Economic Security and the importance of women’s participation and protection in the digital ecosystem. Eric Duflos, Consumer Protection Lead and Senior Financial Sector Specialist at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), presented findings from the 2022 report, The Evolution of the Nature and Scale of DFS Consumer Risks: A Review of Evidence and provided an overview of digital financial inclusion and share existing data on digital-related risks for women.

The presentation was followed by a panel discussion with Mr. Duflos and Pallavi Modhak, Vice President of Advisory Services for South Asia at Women’s World Banking, moderated by Paul Nelson, Senior Digital Finance Advisor and Acting Team Lead for Digital Finance at USAID’s Innovation, Technology, and Research Hub. The panelists provided country examples and practical tools and solutions to understand and address digital financial services related user risks. 

SLIDES

For more resources on CGAP’s reports and data, follow these links:

• An Ecosystem Approach to Consumer Protection: What, Why, and How?
• The Evolution of the Nature and Scale of DFS Consumer Risks: A Review of Evidence (2022)
• Rethinking Consumer Protection: A Responsible Digital Finance Ecosystem (2022)
• Growing Up, Growing Informal: Gender Differences in Financial Services (2022)

To learn about Women’s World Banking work, review these resources:

• Check Your Bias: Gender Bias Scorecard for Lenders (2022)
• Algorithmic Bias, Financial Inclusion, and Gender: A primer on opening up new credit to women in emerging economies (2021)

To view resources shared by participants during the event, please visit the following:

• UN Principles for Responsible Payments (2021)
• Center for Financial Inclusion Report: The Stories Algorithms Tell: Bias and Financial Inclusion at the Data Margins (2021)
• Responsible Finance Forum

For questions about this event recording, or to join the USAID WEE CoP, please contact: fundcop@banyanglobalgita.com.