The UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 46 least developed countries (LDCs). With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. This last mile is where available resources for development are scarcest; where market failures are most pronounced; and where benefits from national growth tend to leave people excluded. UNCDF’s financing models work through three channels: (1) inclusive digital economies, which connects individuals, households, and small businesses with financial eco-systems that catalyze participation in the local economy, and provide tools to climb out of poverty and manage financial lives; (2) local development finance, which capacitates localities through fiscal decentralization, innovative municipal finance, and structured project finance to drive local economic expansion and sustainable development; and (3) investment finance, which provides catalytic financial structuring, de-risking, and capital deployment to drive SDG impact and domestic resource mobilization. By strengthening how finance works for poor people at the household, small enterprise, and local infrastructure levels, UNCDF contributes to SDG 1 on eradicating poverty with a focus on reaching the last mile and addressing exclusion and inequalities of access. At the same time, UNCDF deploys its capital finance mandate in line with SDG 17 on the means of implementation, to unlock public and private finance for the poor at the local level. By identifying those market segments where innovative financing models can have transformational impact in helping to reach the last mile, UNCDF contributes to a number of different SDGs and currently to 28 of 169 targets. The UNCDF has over a decade of experience in digital ?nance and inclusive economies in Africa, Asia and the Paci?c. UNCDF recognizes that reaching the full potential of digital ?nancial inclusion in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aligns with the vision of promoting digital economies that leave no one behind. The vision of UNCDF is to empower millions of people to use services daily that leverage innovation and technology and contribute to the SDGs. UNCDF will apply a market development approach and continuously seek to address underlying market dysfunctions. UNCDF Remittances Portfolio UNCDF aims to improve the functioning of the remittance market in order to improve the financial resilience of migrant families while strengthening economic development efforts of the origin and host countries. In doing so, UNCDF engages with public and private sector stakeholders to strengthen the capacity of the regulators to monitor and analyze the remittance transaction data towards evidence-based policy making, enable a conducive policy and regulatory environment, and deliver financial and technical assistance to a wide range of financial institutions (e.g. banks, cooperatives, microfinance institutions, money transfer operators, and mobile networks operators) to improve the digital remittance ecosystem and design migrant-centric financial products and services (e.g. savings, credit, insurance, payment services, remittances, pension, and investment). The overarching goal of the UNCDF remittances portfolio is to enable inclusive digital economies that support migrants and recipient families towards economic inclusion, financial resilience and health. At the customer level, this means migrants and their families would have better financial, digital and commerce capabilities, including access to jobs and markets. The UNCDF data and research agenda aims to address two broad action research questions: - To what degree can the shift from cash to digital remittances strengthen the financial inclusion, resilience and inclusive growth of migrants and their families?
- How can we improve policy and innovation to ensure digital remittances reach the last mile (low-income, women, youth)?
At micro or household level, digital remittance and fintech solutions have the potential to reach women and people with low incomes – thereby contributing to women’s empowerment, financial inclusion and inclusive economic growth. Several known pathways exist through which remittances and linked financial services can improve the financial resilience of households. Among others, these include: as a buffer to shocks; through an increase in the incomes of migrants as a factor of the channel of sending (digital versus non-digital); and through improvements in access to education, health, housing and other matters of financial resilience for the receiving household members. Moreover, digital remittances can be more easily linked to other financial services such as savings, insurance and pensions which can further improve wider financial inclusion and resilience. Remittances may thereby seem to be one of the most obvious financial services for fostering positive effects for recipient households in developing economies – yet clear insights on this are limited as few impact evaluations have been done. There is little clarity on the actual impact effects of digital remittances innovations on inclusive growth and financial inclusion, resilience and health and women’s economic empowerment. UNCDF is seeking qualified data analytics and research interns to accelerate the learning agenda and the effective monitoring and evaluation under UNCDF remittances portfolio. General Call for 2021 Internship Applications: This is a general call for internships from January 2021 throughout 2021.
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