The FSD Network Conference, held on February 19–20, 2025, at the Tamarind Tree Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya, brought together financial sector leaders, policymakers, development partners, and financial service providers to discuss learnings from the FSD Network’s Gender Collaborative Programme. The conference provided a platform to explore innovative approaches for advancing financial inclusion, particularly for women, and to exchange insights on gender-responsive financial systems, data-driven policy interventions, and scalable solutions for empowering women economically.
The conference featured diverse sessions, starting with discussions on resilience through health finance, where panellists shared models that enhance women’s access to healthcare financing through savings-based mechanisms and value-based care approaches. Another critical session examined the use of alternative data to build credit scoring models, particularly in Tanzania and Rwanda, where financial exclusion remains high among women. Experts highlighted the potential of non-traditional data sources, such as mobile transactions and digital footprints, in improving access to finance for underserved populations.
A major focus of the conference was addressing gender norms and their impact on financial inclusion. Research findings from Uganda, Zambia, Rwanda, and Tanzania revealed deeply ingrained societal norms that limit women’s financial autonomy. Sessions explored ways to challenge these barriers through financial education, unconscious bias training, and male engagement in economic decision-making at the household and institutional levels. The discussions also extended to women in agriculture, emphasising the challenges women face in accessing finance, markets, and technology and identifying successful financing models tailored to their needs.