Sri sells food in a town square in her hometown on the island of Java. Business was going well, and she thought she and her three children would no longer need assistance from Indonesia’s Family Health Program (PKH), a conditional cash transfer program for poor families with children and pregnant women. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Now, Sri’s PKH benefits are the backbone of her family’s support.
G2P programs must address the inequalities faced by women
Millions of women like Sri are seeing their livelihoods, safety and agency threatened by COVID-19, facing fewer employment opportunities, increased care responsibilities and a heightened risk of domestic violence. These factors are exacerbated as many women work in the informal sector: 95% of women in Asia and 89% of women in sub-Saharan Africa earn their income through informal work, which is characterized by insecurity and inadequate social protection. This is often not taken into account by governments and aid agencies. For G2P payments to truly benefit the most vulnerable, they must address the benefit inequalities women face due to COVID-19.
At least 200 countries and territories have expanded or introduced social protection measures in response to COVID-19, reaching nearly 1 billion new people since March. Many countries and territories are leveraging mobile money platforms to safely and quickly distribute emergency cash assistance to poor households. However, low-income women who live in remote areas with limited internet connectivity or who have low digital literacy are less likely to access such assistance.
Putting women at the center of digital G2P payment programs can help countries reduce exclusion risks and maximize impact for women and girls. The World Bank recently partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Global Women’s Bank, CGAP, and Stanford University to release a brief that explains why women are at increased risk of exclusion amid the rapid expansion and digitization of cash transfers and suggests policy options to maximize women’s participation.
Identifying and addressing barriers
The brief highlights five barriers that need to be addressed: gender disparities in financial access, ID ownership, mobile phone ownership, insufficient recognition of gender disparities, and insufficient gender data and analysis.
Persistent disparities in women’s access to finance are exacerbated by discriminatory practices, lack of trust in banking institutions, and high costs. While the number of people excluded from the formal financial sector worldwide fell from 2.5 billion in 2011 to 1.7 billion in 2017, 56% of those still excluded are women.
moreover, Women face a combination of legal, economic and social constraints that lead to gender disparities in ID coverage. This has led to a gender gap in mobile phone ownership, with over 150 countries requiring government-issued ID for SIM registration. Mobile phones are the most widely used channel for digital money transfers. Yet in developing countries, 165 million fewer women than men own a mobile phone.
Cash transfer programmes that fail to identify gender disparities will exclude women who need the support. Insufficient sex-disaggregated data, including in information systems, leads to an inadequate understanding of gender disparities. Digital G2P programs should be designed based on a gender analysis that comprehensively considers women’s roles, responsibilities and needs. and how these have been affected by COVID-19.
Digitalization, direction and design
Theresa is a mother of five living in Mungwi district, Zambia, and grows vegetables to sell in her community. In 2018, Theresa received her Girls Education, Women Empowerment and Livelihoods (GEWEL) grant digitally into an account she opened with a payment provider of her choice. Combined with training, Theresa was able to expand her vegetable garden. Now her business is so profitable that she has embarked on building a home and a grocery shop.
Similarly, in Nigeria, a family support program has been providing cash directly to poor female caregivers since 2016, such as Olukemi. With the cash, she has expanded her carob export business and can now feed her children “until they are satisfied.” “The moment she started receiving the cash, she became independent,” her husband said.
The brief offers a framework for designing inclusive, impactful G2P programs that can reach more women like Theresa and Olukemi. Three recommendations are made:
Digitizing G2P payments can help expand social protection programs at lower cost and allow remote communities to more easily access funds. Digitization allows women to access funds closer to where they live and work. Countries with advanced digital G2P payment systems can leverage retail agent networks to expand reach. It is important to deposit payments directly into women’s accounts. Direct cash transfers with women as default recipients, as in Indonesia, Nigeria, and Zambia, provide women with secure access and increased control over their funds. Direct payments provide an on-ramp to savings, credit, and other financial services. Moreover, when women are given a choice of providers, they are more likely to actively use their accounts and access other services. G2P programs can be designed smartly and efficiently to expand opportunities for women. Streamlining application and onboarding processes and incorporating grievance systems can improve women’s access to program benefits. The key is to give women a voice in the program and ensure they play a leading role in decision-making.
The experiences of Indonesia, Nigeria and Zambia show how countries can provide vital support to women like Sri, Theresa and Olukemi. Policymakers around the world are committed to building back better, and it starts with empowering women.
The World Bank Group, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, launched the G2Px initiative to improve G2P payments at scale by bringing together expertise from critical sectors including social protection, the financial sector, governance, digital development, gender, and data protection. Through G2Px, we are helping government-led social protection programs rapidly respond to the new realities emerging from the pandemic in a comprehensive and empowered way.
For more information on how policymakers can design and implement digital cash transfer programs that are inclusive and empower women, see our new brief, “Digital Cash Transfers in the Era of COVID-19: Opportunities and Considerations for Women’s Inclusion and Empowerment,” a collaboration between the World Bank Group, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Women’s World Banking, CGAP, and Stanford University.
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