> Posted by Anita Gardeva
Word of the Week – Continually Excluded: Individuals who remain financially excluded despite progress to date toward financial inclusion.
The continually excluded represent groups of people that are most difficult to reach with financial services, such as people with disabilities, rural and remote populations, and extremely poor populations. As financial inclusion pushes out the viability frontier the continually excluded segment will shrink but will continue to represent the populations which require the most innovation in order to serve.
Spotlight Fact: A recent paper by the Center— “A New Financial Access Frontier: People with Disabilities”—summarizes expert estimates that there are 650 million disabled people in the world and 520 million (80 percent) live in developing countries. At the same time, less than half of one percent of all microfinance clients are disabled people. Although financial services are not appropriate for all disabled people, they nevertheless constitute an important segment of the continually excluded.
Suggested Resources:
To learn more about financial inclusion for disabled people, read: Josh Goldstein, “A New Financial Access Frontier: People with Disabilities,” Concept Paper, Center for Financial Inclusion, June 2010.
To read more about other types of continually excluded populations such as the “ultra poor” and innovative programs to bring appropriate financial services to them, we recommend: Syed Hashemi and Richard Rosenberg, “Graduating the Poorest into Microfinance: Linking Safety Nets and Financial Services” CGAP Focus Note No. 34, February 2006.
For an example of how understanding the continuously excluded can help improve national financial inclusion strategies, see: “Mexico’s Prospects for Full Financial Inclusion,” White Paper, Center for Financial Inclusion, September 2009.
For more financial inclusion terms, please visit the Financial Inclusion Glossary.
For more information on CFI’s Financial Inclusion 2020 campaign, sign up for updates here.
Flickr credit: khrawlings