Imagine fleeing your home due to war and starting over in a new country, but without access to capital to open a small business. Imagine rebuilding your farm and your home after a damaging storm, but without insurance to help you bounce back. Imagine preparing for your child’s future education, but without a safe place to save.

This is reality for nearly two billion people globally who are failed by the financial system. Underserved communities lack access to essential financial services like credit, insurance, and savings, or they are poorly served by current providers. On top of this, they face the most severe effects of worsening environmental and economic threats, including inflation, instability, climate change, conflict, and migration.

Thankfully, we have powerful tools that can help address these challenges. Digital innovation is unlocking new ways to reach and uplift underserved communities with the financial services they need to build their resilience and a brighter, more prosperous future.

With your support, Accion is developing innovative solutions in emerging markets around the world, learning what works, scaling the most effective innovations, and replicating proven methods to deliver social change for underserved populations across the globe. And we’re focusing our efforts on groups that play vital roles in local communities: small businesses, smallholder farmers, and women.

From upheaval to opportunity

Our work is making a difference for people like Kongolo Fatuma. When a violent civil war broke out in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she left everything she’d ever known to rebuild her life in Uganda. “We decided to come to Uganda so that we can get a better life,” she said. Today, she owns and operates a small beauty business, where she makes wigs and handbags.

By starting small businesses, refugees like Kongolo can earn much-needed income to improve their livelihoods, but they face enormous obstacles. Without the right identity documents, they can’t get access to banking services, which means everything has to be paid upfront and in cash, limiting their ability to build a business.

With support from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Accion is enabling women refugees in Uganda and Ethiopia to overcome these obstacles and build self-reliance by connecting their businesses to responsible financial services and new customers. We’re bringing together local organizations and working to optimize and strengthen their services for refugee customers.

In Uganda, our partner Soko Uganda offers an online marketplace for women to sell their textiles and handicrafts. Participating entrepreneurs like Kongolo can open and link bank accounts from our partner UGAFODE to their Soko Uganda online store, allowing them to receive payments and access working capital loans.

“It’s helping us get other customers from outside,” said Kongolo. “When I have my products here inside, other people don’t know about it. But when it’s on the Soko platform, other people can see it and contact me.”

Responsible financial services make a meaningful difference in the lives of people like Kongolo. Ninety-six percent of UGAFODE customers said their quality of life has improved since they became customers, with 27 percent reporting significant improvements. You can explore this and similar findings in our 2023 Impact Report, published this year.

Together, we’re unlocking inclusive innovation globally

With support from philanthropic institutions, individual donors, and investors who share our vision of a fair and inclusive economy, Accion is working to unlock inclusive innovation that supports women, microentrepreneurs, and smallholder farmers around the world.

We are building and launching new digital financial services for rural and low-income microentrepreneurs, working with partners like Amartha in Indonesia. Amartha provides financial services to over two million women microentrepreneurs across 72,000 rural villages, and our work is strengthening their digital channels and outreach for these clients.

We’re driving the digital transformation of inclusive financial service providers globally, including Los Andes in Peru, which serves 85,000 borrowers and 227,000 savers across the country. Our support will help Los Andes expand and deepen its services, with a focus on women-led and rural microenterprises.

And we’re supporting innovative fintech startups that are finding new solutions to seemingly intractable problems. With our support, Verqor is providing farmers in Mexico with digital credits they can use to buy essential inputs, like seeds and fertilizers, and a marketplace to sell their crops once grown.

And through the Center for Financial Inclusion, we’re convening industry leaders and producing vital research on protecting underserved consumers in the digital age, to maximize the opportunities and minimize the risks of digital innovations.

All our work — and our impact — is made possible through the support of donors who share our vision and believe in our mission. On behalf of Accion, our partners, and the families we serve, we’re so grateful for your trust. Together, we are harnessing the power of digital innovation to create a fair and inclusive economy for underserved communities globally. Thank you!