
Promote the economic empowerment of women and youth in Chad through digital financial and non-financial services
Government of Chad
Africa has a gender-inclusion gap of 12% as compared to the global average of 4%, according to the 2021 Global Findex Report. This gender gap is wider in West Africa, with a Gender Disparity Index of 0.825 compared to the African average of 0.871.
Gender inequality in West Africa is driven by a combination of factors such as unequal opportunities in education and economic development. Women form the bulk of the informal trade sector and it is estimated that 70% of the female population is in vulnerable employment with limited or no access to digital financial services.
This project aims to execute a gender gap analysis on digital financial services (DFS) policies and regulations to foster gender mainstreaming. As policy and regulatory reforms impact all citizens in a country, the project will potentially affect 350 million people in all 15 member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
With the overall goal to achieve a harmonised gender-centric digital financial inclusion framework for use by the digital financial inclusion (DFI) ecosystem stakeholders across the ECOWAS countries, this initiative will focus on the Regional Payments Framework Gateway as a strategic entry for the conduct of the gender gap analysis. The framework has five key components: