There has been a proliferation of innovative financial inclusion initiatives in East Africa in the last decade, often targeted at women. To date, very few of these have focused on women in the workforce. As more companies seek to introduce financial inclusion programs for workers in their supply chains, there is a need to understand the role that local gender norms and dynamics have on the effectiveness of financial inclusion.
This study, developed by BSR’s HERproject and IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative, aims to shed light on the importance of integrating a gender lens into financial inclusion programs and to provide practical recommendations on how to do so. It looks specifically at women and men employed by large scale farms in Kenya’s flower and tea sectors, drawing on findings from a scoping study conducted as part of the expansion to Kenya of HERfinance—a financial inclusion program for low-income workers in global supply chains.