The Cooperativa Financiera de Antioquia (CFA) is helping empower rural Colombian communities by offering crucial services like financial education, business development, and cooperative training in 37 municipalities. The impact of CFA's work was highlighted during Queen Máxima's visit on 26 February 2024, where the Special Advocate saw firsthand the success of local entrepreneurs.
Client Stories
For Indonesia, Technology Holds a Key to Financial Inclusion
The Special Advocate's op-ed on financial inclusion in Indonesia appeared Aug. 29, 2016.
By H.M. Queen Máxima of the Netherlands (published in the Jakarta Post, 29 August 2016, leading up the the Special Advocate's visit to Indonesia, 30 Aug.-1… Read more
Stitching a Thread into Bangladesh's Economy
Jharna Islam has built a thriving small business, and plans to expand further.
In the village of Dattopara, north of Dhaka, a businesswoman named Jharna Islam stands in her workshop before racks of clothing—deep red saris threaded in gold, pink and blue… Read more
In Bangladesh, Bringing Financial Inclusion to Rural Doorsteps
In Rajbari, Nilima (far right) checked on her mobile money account after a visit to the bKash agent. Her friend Farzana (left) came with her to open an account, accompanied by Nilima's mother. Photo credit: Ismail Ferdous/UNSGSA
A Visit to Rajbari’s Access… Read more
Financial Inclusion: More Than Money
This op-ed column was published 18 November 2015 in the Bangladeshi papers The Daily Star (in English) and Prothom Alo (in Bengali) during the Special Advocate's Bangladesh country visit. Read more
Financial Inclusion Bears Fruit in the Philippines
About 90 minutes outside Manila in the Philippines, a financial inclusion success story has taken root on a lush three-hectare pineapple farm.
With Melissa and Manuel Garcia at the helm and with the support of a local financial services provider, this small operation has grown over a six-year… Read more
The New Face of Entrepreneurs
Zhou Guozhi's entrepreneurial spirit and careful investments, supported by her first-ever loan, helped her transform a greenhouse operation into a thriving enterprise. Photo credit: UNSGSA/Adam Dean
Farmers? Women? Whatever happened to the MBAs?
In rural… Read more
Creating Opportunity with Peru's UNICAs
Cuando uno lo tiene a la mano, lo gasta”— When you have it in your hand, you spend it.
In a single sentence, a young Peruvian teacher named Beatriz laid out the power of Peru’s UNICAs—Uniónes de Crédito y Ahorro—small self-organized community groups whose members offer each other financial support… Read more
Innovation Opens a Door for an Enterprising Fishmonger
A Lima fishmonger named Severino was able to transform his business when a new approach to customer assessment made it possible for him to receive credit. Photo credit: Amina Tirana
How can an entrepreneurial fishmonger with no credit history hope to… Read more
Financial products to improve agricultural outcomes and food security
Smallholder farmers sometimes have trouble getting loans, as they are judged by lenders to be too risky. Pilot projects in Africa suggest that weather index-based crop insurance not only helps farmers manage certain risks, but in doing so helps them get loans. This in turn allows more investment in… Read more
Insurance improves health, reduces costs, and alleviates poverty
At the 2012 Twente Research Conference on Microinsurance, the UNSGSA urges stakeholders to find ways to extend the safety net of insurance to more of the world's poor.
Every year, 100 million people around the world fall into poverty due to medical costs.… Read more
Proportional and risk-based controls promote both financial inclusion and financial integrity
Well-intended security and control measures can inadvertently exclude sectors of the economy, especially lower income people and small business owners. Proportional and risk-based approaches allow greater flexibility for small value transactions, where the national authorities assess the… Read more
Conducting financial transactions via mobile phone creates possibilities to reach new markets
When Queen Máxima visited Mali in 2011, women in a fruit-processing cooperative told her how they lacked financial services to manage their business and household cash flows. One woman related that her son sent her cash from another city, but it could take months, and sometimes never arrived. When… Read more
