Topics Gender equality

Enhancing women’s economic empowerment through digital cash transfers: Analysis of the Digitize/Direct/Design criteria applied to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Bihar, India

This report shares the results from a recent landscaping exercise that identifies the constraints to effectively serving Bihari women through National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), India’s largest safety net program for rural households. The report is structured in line…

Minimum wages and wage protection in the Arab States: Ensuring a just system for national and migrant workers

This note for policymakers explores how States in the region – particularly those with a high percentage of migrant workers – can initiate a systematic, evidence-based process for setting and adjusting minimum wages, drawing on ILO standards and international good…

Equal pay through digital payments in Jordan

Jordan pledges to promote pay equity between women and men through digital

ILO lauds Jordan for protecting private school teacher wages through digital payments

The National Committee for Pay Equity and the Stand-up with Teachers Campaign had lobbied for the move since late 2017 with the support of the ILO.

Financial needs of garment workers in India

This report examines the opportunity to expand financial inclusion for women in India’s garment sector by increasing women’s access to and use of mobile financial products and services.

Closing the gender gap: Opportunities for the women’s mobile financial services market in Bangladesh

This report highlights the opportunities, problems, and challenges related to women’s financial inclusion through the adoption of mobile financial services in Bangladesh, based on a nationally representative survey of 2,000 women mobile financial services (MFS) users and 2,000 women non-users…

The digital payments opportunity: A conversation

A discussion with UN-based Better Than Cash Alliance’s Private Sector Digital Innovation Lead Marjolaine Chaintreau and BSR’s HERproject Associate Director Chhavi Ghuliani on digital wages.

Bank identity: Banks, ID cards, and the emergence of a financial identification society in Sweden

Today, nearly the entire adult population in Sweden uses a digital BankID for more purposes than only financial ones. Issuing identity documents is commonly perceived as a task for state authorities, but in Swedish society banks have played a dominant…

How much does having a bank account help the poor?

Having a bank account is widely regarded as the first step toward financial inclusion of the poor. Funds deposited in a bank account are also observed to lead to higher savings. Exploiting special features of the National Rural Employment Guarantee…

The opportunities and challenges of digitizing government-to-person payments

This paper reviews evidence on the benefits and challenges faced by governments migrating from cash to digital (electronic) government-to-person (G2P) payments. When supported by an appropriate consumer financial protection framework, digital payments enable confidential and convenient financial services, which can…