Session Description: Designing Inclusive Digital Lending Solutions for Young Rural Women
The Mastercard Foundation, in collaboration with partner organizations, is co‑developing a new initiative called SheGrowsAfrica, a program designed to connect young rural women to digital financial services and strengthen the financial market systems that serve them. The initiative aims to make financial markets more inclusive, accessible, and responsive to the needs of young women entrepreneurs across underserved regions.
SheGrowsAfrica seeks to achieve this by:
- Supporting key digital finance actors to collaborate based on their complementary strengths.
- Enhancing the financial and digital capabilities of young women entrepreneurs.
- Encouraging business model innovation that responds to the realities of borrowers in underserved areas; and
- Addressing systemic barriers within the financial ecosystem that limit the reach and effectiveness of digital lending solutions.
The program recognizes that meaningful change requires coordinated action among market players such as FinTechs, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), Financial Institutions (FIs), e‑commerce platforms, and development organizations. Together, these actors can unlock new pathways to ensure financial services become more affordable, accessible, and scalable for young women in rural Africa.
Objective of the Session
This session invites key stakeholders and industry experts to engage in a collaborative discussion to help shape the SheGrowsAfrica program. The goal is to share the initial program design, gather feedback on its practicality, relevance, and sustainability, and explore opportunities for partnership and alignment with ongoing market initiatives. Stakeholder insights will directly inform the refinement of the program to ensure it addresses real market constraints and delivers solutions that work for young women in rural, underserved communities.
Youth Persona: “Amina” – 20-year-old Young Woman Entrepreneur
Amina is a 20‑year‑old young woman living in a remote rural area with no access to formal financial institutions such as banks, microfinance organizations, or SACCOs. She dropped out of primary school around Grade 5 or 6 and has limited literacy, able to read simple text and numbers, and generally prefers voice communication. Although her community lacks financial service providers, there is mobile network coverage, and she owns a basic feature phone rather than a smartphone.
To support herself and her family, Amina runs a small informal business, typically selling vegetables, grains, or fruits at the local market. Her income is small, irregular, and entirely cash‑based, and her business decisions are shaped by daily cash needs, household responsibilities, and the availability of stock and transport. She has no access to a bank account, formal loans, or savings groups, and relies mainly on her feature phone for calls and basic mobile money transactions when available.
Despite these challenges, Amina is ambitious. She hopes to grow her business into a more predictable and profitable enterprise and dreams of opening a small shop or renting a stall in the main market. She also wants to learn essential skills such as basic bookkeeping, using mobile money more effectively, accessing safe and affordable credit, and improving her product selection and pricing strategies.
Amina faces significant financial, digital, and social barriers. Financially, she has no formal lenders in her area, lacks collateral, and her irregular income makes loan repayment uncertain, leading to a strong fear of defaulting and the social shame associated with it. Digitally, her digital literacy is low, and data bundles are often too expensive. Social and gender norms also create obstacles: her mobility is restricted, she carries heavy unpaid household responsibilities, and she faces pressure to contribute consistently to the family income.
