Get in touch

Podcast

Global shifts like digitization are driving economic and societal change, including the way that people find and do their jobs. More and more people are using jobtech, digital platforms that connect people to employment opportunities, to earn a living. In this episode of Accion Venture Lab’s Fintech for the People, host <a href="https://www.accion.org/bio/rahil-rangwala" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rahil Rangwala</a> sits down with <a href="https://jobtechalliance.com/team/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Chris Maclay</a>, Program Director at the Jobtech Alliance of MercyCorps, to talk about how MercyCorps is merging fintech with innovation in the job market, especially in Africa.

Listen to this in-depth talk about the role that technology continues to play in employment and the future of work, the beginnings of the Jobtech Alliance, and what an ever-shifting job market means for workers.

To learn more about the Jobtech Alliance, visit their <a href="https://jobtechalliance.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">website</a>. And learn more about <a href="https://www.accion.org/how-we-work/invest/accion-venture-lab" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Accion Venture Lab here</a>.

<img class="size-large wp-image-28843 aligncenter" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Accion-MercyCorps-Quotecard2-1024x576.png" alt="A Quotecard for the podcast" width="1024" height="576" />

The role of tech in the future of jobs

Article

Leaders around the world are seeing the critical role of digital public infrastructure (DPI) in creating a fair and inclusive global economy.

Last week, <a href="https://www.undp.org/press-releases/un-digital-event-mobilizes-global-leadership-and-us400-million-support-digital-public-infrastructure" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">through an initiative of the UN</a>, a group of countries, leaders, philanthropies, and multilateral organizations pledged their support to build safe and inclusive DPI for 100 countries by 2030. And earlier this month, at the G20 summit in New Delhi, all twenty countries <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/world%2Fg20-leaders-call-for-global-governance-for-ai-inclusive-digital-public-infra-for-service-delivery-2679798" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">agreed to a framework</a> on the development, deployment, and governance of DPI for their citizens.

This is a big deal! By facilitating trusted identification systems, quick and easy payments, and the secure exchange of data, DPI forms a vital foundation for digital and financial solutions. This can help reduce poverty, build resilience, and open opportunity for all. Greater international cooperation on DPI can ensure this foundation is made quickly and fairly—and with respect for the rights, privacy, and unique needs of the most vulnerable people.
<h2><strong>What is digital public infrastructure?</strong></h2>
As Thao Hong of the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/articles/what-is-digital-public-infrastructure" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">explains</a>, DPI enables countries to safely and efficiently deliver economic opportunities and social services to citizens through digital channels. Just like roads connecting people and businesses, DPI creates a network for delivering digital services. Accion and our financial service provider partners can build on this foundation to provide underserved people with responsible credit, savings, insurance, and other financial tools they need to thrive.

India’s open-source DPI, also known as the “<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3c1504ef-96f7-4656-a5cf-d474123dc31e" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">India Stack</a>” has enabled the country to provide biometric ID’s to nearly all the country’s adults through the Aadhaar system. Now the world’s largest biometric identity system, Aadhar is central to delivering government services, reducing corruption and fraud, providing secure financial services, and increasing tax revenue. While the government works to secure Aadhaar from evolving <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/kolkata/fraud-cases-involving-misuse-aadhaar-data-rise-kolkata-police-urges-caution-8952524/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">threats</a>, the system is helping more citizens send and receive quick payments through the <a href="https://www.npci.org.in/what-we-do/aeps/product-overview" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Aadhaar Enabled Payment System</a> and <a href="https://www.npci.org.in/what-we-do/upi/product-overview" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">United Payments Interface</a> (UPI).

Another key component of the India Stack, UPI now <a href="https://internationalbanker.com/banking/empowering-indias-economy-unleashing-the-power-of-digital-banking/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">leads the world</a> in transaction volume, accounting for an incredible 40 percent of all global transactions and generating <a href="https://business.outlookindia.com/banking/upi-records-10-billion-transactions-learn-about-recent-innovations-in-digital-payment" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">10 billion transactions</a> in August 2023 alone. That’s more transactions than people on Earth—and it’s remarkable progress for a country that relied on cash for <a href="https://www.electronicpaymentsinternational.com/news/india-cash-displacement-gathers-pace/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">90 percent</a> of transactions only a few years ago. Meanwhile, according to the most recent <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/globalfindex" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Global Findex</a>, India’s financial account ownership has more than doubled over the past decade, from 35 to 78 percent of all adults, and its gender gap in account ownership has effectively vanished.
<h2><strong>Why invest in digital public infrastructure?</strong></h2>
More countries around the world are building their DPI to expand economic opportunity. As leaders consider how best to achieve progress, the evidence is clear that these investments can create a more inclusive financial system, equip more people with the tools they need to thrive, and build a more sustainable and inclusive world for future generations:
<h3><strong>Unlocking inclusive growth</strong></h3>
As Bhaskar Chakravorti <a href="https://hbr.org/2023/05/the-case-for-investing-in-digital-public-infrastructure" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">points out</a> in <em>Harvard Business Review</em>, digital IDs alone can unlock economic value equivalent to <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functions/McKinsey%20Digital/Our%20Insights/Digital%20identification%20A%20key%20to%20inclusive%20growth/MGI-Digital-identification-In-brief.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">3 to 13 percent of GDP</a>, while emerging economies can see an improvement of 6 percent of GDP on average. DPI can also boost economic activity as excluded populations enter the formal financial system. For example, in <a href="https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/42695/brazils-pix-used-for-more-transactions-than-credit-and-debit-cards-combined" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Brazil</a>, the central bank’s cost-free Pix payment system now accounts for over a third of all digital transactions, and Cambodia is achieving similar progress through its <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/08/cambodias-digital-currency-ishowing-other-central-banks-the-way" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bakong</a> digital currency and efforts to <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/digital-impact-governance-initiative/reports/digital-transformation-opportunities-and-challenges-in-the-lower-mekong-region/a-brief-landscape-of-the-regional-digital-ecosystem/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">digitize</a> government services.
<h3><strong>Strengthening government resources</strong></h3>
Developing economies around the world are facing a worsening debt crisis, which is <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/09/1141102" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">slowing progress</a> toward achieving the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. While investing in DPI creates new expenses and logistical challenges in the short term, in the long term, DPI allows countries to responsibly build revenue, and ultimately provide their citizens with more trusted and comprehensive services.
<h3><strong>Building climate resilience</strong></h3>
As more communities confront extreme weather events due to climate change, their governments may turn to cash transfers to support recovery and resilience. In <a href="https://www.codevelop.fund/addressing-climate-change-with-dpi" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Malawi</a>, for example, digital cash transfers provide relief to farmers and their communities during severe droughts, and in <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/responding-crisis-digital-payments-social-protection-short-term-measures-long-term-benefits" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Thailand</a>, farmers can receive fertilizer subsidies to an account linked to their national ID.

The pandemic revealed how DPI dramatically boosts the efficiency of cash transfers: of the 166 governments that launched cash-transfer programs during the pandemic, those with some stage of DPI (like <a href="https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/blog/co-developing-digital-public-infrastructure-for-an-equitable-recovery/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Togo</a>) reached an average of <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/covid-19-crisis-showed-future-g2p-payments-should-be-digital-heres-why" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">51 percent of their populations</a>, while those without reached only 16 percent. And cash transfers are only one way in which <a href="https://www.undp.org/blog/digital-public-infrastructure-green-transitions" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">DPI supports climate resilience</a>. DPI also facilitates the exchange of climate data, opens access to carbon markets, enables smart energy networks, and more.
<h2><strong>To maximize opportunities, remember the risks</strong></h2>
Building DPI comes with several challenges for governments—and for historically underserved populations who’ve long been shut out from economic opportunities.

DPI requires significant public investment, which may prompt countries facing fiscal crises to turn to the private sector for help in deployment and implementation. Public-private partnerships can create valuable efficiency and innovation, but they can also risk invading privacy and shifting the cost burden onto consumers, and making basic digital and financial services inaccessible to low-income communities. On the other hand, without solid institutional safeguards, government-led approaches also risk abusing citizens’ data for surveillance, censorship, or political retribution.

DPI also goes hand-in-hand with access to the internet, which is still lacking or nonexistent in many places around the world. To ensure vulnerable groups—including small businesses, smallholder farmers, and women—aren’t left behind as more services go digital, governments and the private sector must work together to create broader, more equitable access to the internet and devices needed to access it.

As more digital tools, including those using artificial intelligence, proliferate on the rails of DPI, we must work to make sure that innovation bridges divides, instead of deepening them, and that the needs of vulnerable populations are prioritized in the journey to a more connected and inclusive digital future.

Why digital public infrastructure is key to inclusion

In the heart of Khordha, a bustling town on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar in Odisha, India, Manoranjan is standing behind the counter of his pharmacy when a motorbike pulls up. A mother and father are bringing their sick toddler to his shop for medical care. Manoranjan listens closely as the parents describe her symptoms, takes the child’s temperature, dispenses medication to reduce fever to the grateful family, and asks them to visit the doctor as soon as possible.

Soon after, a man experiencing knee pain arrives. After an initial examination, Manoranjan prescribes him over-the-counter pain medication and offers the man a glass of water to take the first dose. His warm smile and friendly demeanor make customers feel at ease. He is a passionate healthcare professional who stands out even further as a young, ambitious, and tech-savvy entrepreneur.

At just 27 years old, Manoranjan is the face of Mahavir Health Care, a pharmacy that serves as a lifeline for many in the neighborhood. His journey to become a trusted medical advisor and a thriving entrepreneur is a testament to the power of young Indians like him to create economic opportunities where they are needed most. Manoranjan's day begins early at 7:30 a.m., and from that moment on, he dedicates himself to providing essential medical care to his customers.

“I sell everything and have many customers coming here. They’re satisfied,” says the pharmacist and entrepreneur. “I sell all types of medicine, prescription and over-the-counter. I sell FMCG products [fast-moving consumer goods] and baby products.” Around half of his customers battle chronic conditions like diabetes, relying on him to provide the medications prescribed by their doctors. The other half have acute needs, like infections that require antibiotics. He dispenses drugs that doctors prescribe, offers recommendations, and draws blood for lab tests.

<img class="aligncenter wp-image-28816 size-large" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/manoranjan-store-annapurna-1024x683.jpg" alt="Manoranjan's pharmacy in Khorda" width="1024" height="683" />

Entrepreneurship is a pathway for young Indians like Manoranjan to find economic opportunities in their communities. Two-thirds of the country’s population is under the age of 35, but as these young people enter the workforce, they experience high rates of unemployment and underemployment. Many take work in the informal economy to make ends meet. Manoranjan was fortunate to work in pharmaceutical marketing for a few years. When he decided to open his own pharmacy, he was able to self-fund the space for his shop but needed capital to stock the shelves. That’s when he turned to <a href="https://annapurnafinance.in/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Annapurna Finance Pvt Ltd.</a>, a microfinance institution in India and longtime partner of Accion, for the capital he needed. He received his first-ever loan from Annapurna and opened his pharmacy’s doors in April 2022.

<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-28815" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/manoranjan-customers-annapurna-1024x683.jpg" alt="Manoranjan's pharmacy in Khorda" width="1024" height="683" />

“Annapurna is the best,” he says. Annapurna Finance was established in 2009 and has grown to provide microloans, insurance, and other financial services. Their target customers are financially excluded individuals, households, and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) like Mahavir Health Care. Their meticulous cashflow analysis ensures that loans are granted responsibly, resulting in a remarkable repayment rate of over 99 percent.

“The service is excellent. All the staff are excellent,” says Manoranjan. “I’m very happy working with them. My business is already growing with [this loan], and in the future, I hope to grow more.”

Annapurna is also evolving to meet the needs of an increasingly tech-savvy market. In recent years, they have worked with Accion on their own <a href="/the-impact-of-digital-transformation-on-underserved-microbusinesses-findings-from-accions-partnership-with-mastercard" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">digital transformation</a>, which appeals to customers like Manoranjan. For the pharmacist, technology is part of his day-to-day routine: he uses his phone to make payments to the bank and accept payments from customers. From his computer, he manages his stock, bills customers, and orders inventory. He uses Annapurna’s <a href="/how-digital-communication-channels-deepen-customer-engagement" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Customer Engagement Platform</a> to communicate with the provider: “I receive voice messages from my loan officer with updates about my loan. They tell me that payment is coming soon and prepare for that payment.”

Annapurna’s Customer Engagement Platform simplifies communication, allowing small business owners to receive updates about their loans effortlessly. The platform leverages existing channels like WhatsApp that are already familiar to customers. This makes it easy for Manoranjan and other customers who already have the app on their phones and use it regularly. They can interact with the institution when they want and without the learning curve associated with a new platform. With support from Accion and funding from the <a href="https://scbf.ch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Swiss Capacity Building Facility</a>, Annapurna is further enhancing its Customer Engagement Platform to cater to product, service, and information requests of its customer base. Their goal is to encourage more customers to embrace digital channels, making financial services more convenient and accessible.

<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-28817" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/manoranjan-digital-annapurna-1024x683.jpg" alt="Annapurna client Manoranjan uses his phone" width="1024" height="683" />

<a href="https://www.accion.org/annapurna-finance-raises-usd-35-million-from-accion-encourage-capital-and-oikocredit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Accion supports Annapurna</a> in its efforts to provide innovative financial services that can reach small businesses and individuals across India. Digital products meet customers where they are, bringing more people into the formal financial system and fostering growth in communities that need it most — businesses like Manoranjan’s.

When asked about his aspirations for his business, the driven entrepreneur says, “I hope to open more locations in the future.” With his attention to customers, technical savvy, and access to the financing he’ll need, growth is within reach.

Bridging financing gaps for young entrepreneurs in India

Rapid digitalization, climate change, economic instability, AI and automation, and other trends have shifted how people around the world live and work. For low-income and underserved people, these shifts have created new work opportunities, like gig work, and new risks and challenges, like the need to learn new digital skills. In this season of Accion Venture Lab’s Fintech for the People podcast, we’re exploring the role of fintech in the changing future of work. In the first episode of the season, host <a href="https://www.accion.org/bio/rahil-rangwala" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rahil Rangwala</a> interviews <a href="https://www.cgap.org/about/people/sophie-sirtaine" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sophie Sirtaine</a>, CEO of CGAP, a global partnership of leading development organizations working to advance the lives of people living in poverty — especially women — through financial inclusion.

They discuss the intersection of fintech and the future of work, particularly for blue and gray collar workers, like gig workers. Sophie shares CGAP's mission to make financial services accessible to the world's most vulnerable communities. The episode explores the importance of building responsible and inclusive financial ecosystems for a green, resilient, and equitable future. Tune in to learn more about the importance of inclusive financial solutions as global shifts change the nature of work, especially for low-income and underserved populations.

To learn more about Accion Venture Lab, visit our <a href="https://www.accion.org/how-we-work/invest/accion-venture-lab" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">website</a>.

<img class="size-large wp-image-28793 aligncenter" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Accion-CGAP-Quotecard-1024x576.png" alt="podcast quotecard with a headshot" width="1024" height="576" />

Navigating the intersection of fintech and the future of work

<img class="wp-image-28789 size-large aligncenter" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/fintech-for-the-people-rahil-1024x576.png" alt="Fintech for the People season 6" width="1024" height="576" />

This season, we'll dive into one of the hottest topics investors and entrepreneurs are discussing: The intersection of the future of work and fintech. Global shifts and trends — like rapid digitalization, climate change, migration, and generative AI — are changing the way that people around the world live and work.

Host <a href="https://www.accion.org/bio/rahil-rangwala" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rahil Rangwala</a>, Managing Partner of Accion Venture Lab, will speak with five industry experts, ranging from entrepreneurs to investors to stakeholders in the ecosystem, who are playing a critical role in shaping this transition. We are excited to navigate this complex topic of the future of work with you this season and aim to share what future work means and how it is affecting the lives of a vast emerging workforce that is often overlooked.

Learn more about <a href="https://www.accion.org/how-we-work/invest/accion-venture-lab" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Accion Venture Lab here</a> and follow us on <a href="https://twitter.com/accionvlab" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/accion-venture-lab/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">LinkedIn</a>. Listen to the <a href="https://link.chtbl.com/3S4T3Gut">intro episode here</a>.

Navigating the future of work: Intro to season 6 of Fintech for the People

Michael Schlein

Investments in digital public infrastructure can unlock opportunities for financially underserved people.

How Manoranjan opened his neighborhood pharmacy and realized his dream of running his own business with support from digital financial services

Fintech for the People: Season 6, Episode 1 featuring Sophie Sirtaine, CEO of CGAP

Learn more about Global Advisory Solutions