Publication

This paper highlights the importance of financial inclusion for development in rural African communities. The author provides an overview of financial inclusion in Africa and the methods through which financially excluded people on the continent save their money and obtain credit. He also looks at 1) a number of selected informal remittance mechanisms used by the rural poor to transfer and receive money; 2) the importance of financial literacy; and 3) examples of efforts to improve financial inclusion from Kenya, Bangladesh and Haiti.