The European Microfinance Platfomr (e-MFP) has published the COVID-19 Financial Inclusion Compass, a special edition of the Compass series specifically focused on the current challenges, medium-term priorities, concerns, opportunities and forecasts for a sector facing probably the greatest crisis in its modern history.
The Compass started in 2018, and another edition followed last year. With proof of concept well established for a cross-sector, mixed-methodology survey, the plan was to continue with the annual paper this year, looking at trends, new areas of focus and the other established themes of this series, which together seek to provide an overview of in what direction the sector sees itself heading, and how to get there.
But as the Covid-19 pandemic spread and the severity of its impact on the financial inclusion sector became increasingly apparent, e-MFP decided to take advantage of the methodology, brand, goodwill and expertise developed in the previous two editions to re-purpose this year’s survey for this critical moment, to ask: How severe are the various challenges facing different stakeholder groups? What should be the priorities of the sector in the medium-term (both to recover from this crisis and put in place measures to mitigate the next)? And how will this year transform the sector – for better or worse?
