Top Ten Publications of 2020

The extended community quarantine imposed by the government to contain the spread of COVID-19 has adversely affected micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the Philippines. This report highlights the nature and extent of the impact of COVID-19 on the cash-flows, business operations, and supply chains of these MSMEs. 

This note outlines a strategy for the rescue of the microfinance sector (MFS) due to distress caused by the twin health and economic crises. The strategy is based on the authors’ experience with a wide variety of economic and financial crises over the past 30 years - including crises in various East Asian countries, Turkey, Mexico, Argentina, the sovereign debt crises of the 1980s and 1990s - and the efforts to address these episodes by the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve, World Bank, IMF and other official and private institutions.

This report provides a detailed country-level view of the impact of COVID-19 on micro, small, and medium enterprises in Kenya. It also highlights their coping strategies and provides recommendations for policymakers and financial service providers to support them.

The focus of this paper is on how the financial services industry has been responding to date to the pandemic with an emphasis on the role of business continuity plans – which include measures for possible pandemics. 

This paper provides background research for the CGAP Blog post, Personas Show How Social Norms Impact Women’s Financial Inclusion (December 2020). The influence of gendered social norms has not been systematically analyzed or widely incorporated into financial inclusion programming. This diagnostic aims to identify social norms that affect how women access, use, and benefit from financial services. The goal is to guide practitioners toward a better understanding of the underlying dynamics. 

Emerging technology is driving optimism about building a more inclusive digital economy. Will one innovation—a digital asset known as stablecoins—expand access to financial services among the poor? To encourage further study and dialogue, this note explores five open questions about whether stablecoins could promote financial inclusion in lower- and middle-income countries.

The World Economic Forum’s Platform for Shaping the Future of Financial and Monetary Systems convened several virtual roundtables at the onset of the pandemic—with stakeholders from banks, asset managers, fintechs, insurers, investors, international organizations, and central banks—to discuss the impacts of COVID-19 on the global financial system. This briefing summarizes the outcomes of these initial discussions, highlighting participants’ views on financial developments and on the highest priorities for policy-makers moving forward.

This study is expected to inform stakeholders on ways to provide support to microfinance institutions (MFIs) so that they can continue their work, sustain their own business and extend financing to low-income households and microbusinesses.

These four notes, which provide background research for the CGAP paper, Microfinance and COVID-19: A Framework for Regulatory Response, focus on policy and regulatory responses adopted by financial authorities in four countries: India, Pakistan, Peru, and Uganda. Responses include measures enabling microfinance providers (MFPs) to operate safely, providing temporary relief to clients, increasing MFPs’ access to liquidity, and simplifying supervisory processes where appropriate. 

This landscaping study, prepared for CGAP with funding provided by MetLife Foundation, presents the research behind the CGAP Blog, "How Fintechs Could Digitize Store Credit in the Arab World" (December 2019). It offers a high-level analysis of the Arab World’s fintech ecosystem and the ability of fintechs to reach financially excluded groups, such as women, youth, refugees, small and medium enterprises, and low-income individuals.