The Fletcher Leadership Program for Financial Inclusion’s 2019 Fellowship is in Full-Swing
The Fletcher Leadership Program for Financial Inclusion (FLPFI) is happy to announce that its 2019 fellowship has completed the first portion of the program’s three-part curriculum! Each year FLPFI works with a cohort of fellows who are policymakers working to advance financial services for the poor. This year’s class of policymakers have completed the online portion of the fellowship and are now beginning their in-person residency here at Tufts. The 18 fellows hail from 17 countries spanning the globe from Argentina to Zimbabwe.
Throughout the online course, the fellows studied the FLPFI 8 Question Method for Policy Development (8QM), a framework used for identifying and diagnosing financial inclusion problems, and have designed and implemented policy solutions accordingly. The fellows have worked to identify a key challenge relating to financial inclusion in their country and gathered secondary data on that issue. Earlier this semester, the fellows presented the findings from their first round of “People-Centered Policy research”, which involved conversations with users or potential users of financial services. This exercise helps policymakers connect with clients as real people, who use formal and informal financial services as part of complex financial management strategies. Additionally, they conducted a second “People-Centered Policy” assignment that focused on helping providers of financial services better understand what barriers those actors perceive to be in serving marginalized clients.
The fellows have been working on financial inclusion challenges that range from raising business capital in Haiti, to increasing smallholder farmers’ access to formal finance in Cameroon, to improving the regulatory framework for digital financial services in Indonesia. As they begin the second portion of the fellowship’s curriculum, they will continue to diagnose the root causes of these challenges, develop solutions, work with key stakeholders, implement policy ideas, and learn about the efficacy of the policies. It’s an exciting journey and one that the 2019 fellowship class has eagerly begun!
For more information about the program, please visit our website.