IFPRI Policy Seminar: Building Resilience through Financial Inclusion - 5/9/2019 - OPetryniak

Panelist: Olga Petryniak, Senior Director for Resilience, Mercy Corps In low-income countries, disasters induced by climate change are giving rise to new risks, shocks, and stresses among already vulnerable households. Well-designed financial products and services could play a role in increasing low-income families’ resilience by helping them prepare for the uncertain: financial inclusion can facilitate efforts to reduce risks, increase investments, and bounce back from shocks more quickly. Yet, neither the potential of financial products and services for increasing resilience, nor the most effective designs and delivery mechanisms, are fully understood. Closer collaborations between researchers and decision-makers in the resilience space could shed new light on these questions. This seminar will therefore provide a space to discuss effective strategies for building resilience through financial inclusion, and make a call for more research on this urgent challenge. Research by IFPRI and IPA on this topic is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (https://www.gatesfoundation.org/), the CGIAR Research Programs on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS) (https://ccafs.cgiar.org/), and the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) (https://pim.cgiar.org/).