Though, I had a chance in the past to work on the policies for digital entrepreneurship for developing countries, I have never worked with the organization on the ground. Not to mention, that I have never been to India, nor worked with Indian colleagues.
This was one of the reasons I was so excited to work on this assignment. Wanted to get the experience of working directly with an organization in the developing countries on issues -related to digital solutions supporting access to finance and empowerment of women. I also wanted to learn more about Indian culture, as well as real challenges that organizations and people face in rural India.
What I have learnt from my work with the Samhita Development Network
Some major take-aways:
1) Empowering women through micro-finance means empowering whole families. Success of women in their entrepreneurial activities enables them to finance their children’s education. And that, in turn, leads to their higher chances to succeed in the future.
2) Microfinance initiatives do not have to do everything on their own. The biggest value for customers and initiates themselves comes from them forging collaboration with mobile operators and fintech companies.
3) Fintech-enabled innovations in microfinance go hand in hand with government initiatives and regulation. For instance, Adahaar bio metric identity cards in India make it easier to implement digital loan processing and customer on-boarding.
4) Connectivity and digital literacy do not come hand in hand. First of all, quality of internet remains a challenge in India and Internet disruption is frequent in monsoon time. Secondly, digital literacy is very low in India, and, especially in rural areas, is connected to low level of general literacy.