[Call for Chapters]
Banking on the unbanked: Financial inclusion for sustainable development
Editors: Essam Yassin MohammedZenebe Bashaw Uraguchi
Background
It is widely acknowledged that poverty is multi-dimensional, and that poverty reduction entails many different kinds of change. Even though remarkable progress has been achieved in reducing poverty, the work is far from over. There are more than one billion people who live under the poverty line – most of whom are from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. A development challenge that aggravates this problem further is the fact that more than 77% of poor men and women do not have access to financial products and services such as bank accounts, affordable and suitable loans, insurance, etc. leaving them vulnerable to a cycle of poverty trap. Significant challenges remain toward building a more inclusive financial system that empowers the world’s poor to make and act upon economic and social decisions – increasing opportunities, securing households’ livelihoods and reducing poverty.
There are a number of barriers to access to financial services that includelengthy and complex process, distance (geographic isolation) from financial institutions, lack of suitable financial products and services,limited andshort-term instalments and repayment systems, weak savings and over-indebtedness,low financial literacy and others. One of the most critical ingredients to transform the livelihoods of many poor men and women, and address poverty is to explore approaches that address these constraints and stimulate sustainable and scalable impacts through financial inclusion.
Financial inclusion is the process that ensures the ease of access, availability, and usage of formal and informal financial products and services for all members of an economy[1]. It is widely acknowledged that financial inclusion can effectively unlock the bottlenecks that prevent poor women and men from reaching their potential. In a recent development, as the year 2015 marks the end of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and ushers in a new set of global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the recognition of the importance of financial inclusion has gained momentum. Goal 1 of the proposed SDGs aims to ‘end poverty in all its forms everywhere’ and to ensure that all men and women have access to financial services including microfinance by 2030.
Stakeholders from the public and private sectors across industries and sectors have tried to tackle core constraints, shared common pitfalls and best practices, and identified innovative ways to meet the financial needs of the millions of poor and financially excluded around the world. Therefore, it is more timely now than ever to both conceptually analyse and document empirical evidences on how financial inclusion plays an important role in driving sustainable and scalable development impacts in the post-2015 era.
Thematic areas:
We welcome evidenced-based/empirical papers (qualitative or quantitative), conceptual discussions, comparative analyses, and in-depth case studies. Topics for submission may fall under the following thematic divisions, but are not limited to:
- Understanding financial inclusion
- Approaches to facilitating financial inclusion
- Challenges and success factors for deeper financial intermediaries
- Financing sustainable development
- Financial literacy
- Gender equality and social equity towards financial inclusion
- Institutional arrangements/policy frameworks for financial inclusion (e.g. regulations, supervision, client protection, etc.)
- Digital financing/mobile banking
- Resilience to vulnerability through financial inclusion
- Alternative financing (e.g. Islamic finance)
- Lessons from conditional cash transfer programmes
- Lessons from incentive-based natural resources management (e.g. PES)
- Monitoring and measuring financial inclusion(measuring success)
- Any other topics relevant to financial inclusion
Deadline of Submission:
- Abstracts (not longer than 290 words) must be submitted by September 15, 2015.
- Accepted chapter author(s) will be notified by October 5, 2015.
- Full chapters are expected to be submitted by February 10, 2016. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis.
- Full chapters should be emailed with subject as “Banking on the Unbanked_(insert short title)”
Word Limit and chapter Format:
- The chapter’s length should be not less than 5000 words and not more than 9000 words with minimal use of tables, graphs, figures or pictures.
- The chapter may be an individual submission or a co-authored submission.
- Font used should be Times New Roman and font size 12pt with 1.5pt line spacing.
- The chapters should follow APA style of referencing.
- The authors are required to send a short biographical sketch (less than 120 words) about themselves to the editors.
About editors:
Dr Essam Yassin Mohammed is senior researcher in Environmental Economics with IIED and former Head of Fisheries Promotion Unit at the Ministry of Fisheries of Eritrea. In addition to his academic and professional experience as Fisheries Scientist, he is an expert in economic valuation of the environment. In his capacity as Environmental Economist, he works on a wide range of topics from economic valuation of environmental goods and services to influencing policy processes to promote fair, inclusive and sustainable economies both at national and global levels. Essam is editor of the book “Economic Incentives for Marine and Coastal Conservation: Prospects, Challenges and Policy Implications.”
Dr Zenebe Bashaw Uraguchi is a development economist with more than 17 years of multi-country experience working for a multinational company, an international development bank and a research institute. He currently works with the largest development agency, HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation [ based in Switzerland, as Programme Coordinator for Eastern Europe and Senior Advisor in market systems development. His areas of interest are development finance, development paradigms, and monitoring and results measurement.
[1] (Sarma 2008)