Joint e-MFP & FIF UK Event on How the Financial Inclusion Sector Can - and Must - Serve the World’s Displaced People

On 4th March there was an e-MFP event at SOAS in London entitled ‘Advancing financial inclusion for refugees and forcibly displaced people - how the financial inclusion sector can - and must - serve the world’s displaced people’. This is the latest in a series going back to 2016 that is co-hosted by e-MFP and Financial inclusion Forum UK (FIF UK) to present the outcomes, themes, insights and best practices from the previous year’s European Microfinance Award (EMA).

In 2024, the topic of the EMA was “Advancing Financial Inclusion for Refugees and Forcibly Displaced People”, seeking to highlight organisations active in financial inclusion and helping FDPs build resilience, restore livelihoods, and live with dignity in their host communities. The financial inclusion sector has an enormous and important role to play in supporting refugees and other FDPs, meeting their complex financial and non-financial needs across the various phases of displacement, and working with host country communities, policymakers and other actors to address the barriers FDPs face – and that financial organisations face in serving them.

This year’s joint e-MFP/FIF UK event was moderated by Ed Fraser - the new Executive Director of FIF UK, formerly of the Danish Refugee Council, and a consultant working with the e-MFP EMA team last year.

e-MFP’s Sam Mendelson kicked off the discussion by presenting case studies and insights from last year’s Award that were contained within the Award publication. Advancing Financial Inclusion for Refugees & Forcibly Displaced People: Insights from the EMA 2024 is the latest in a series that goes back to the beginnings of the European Microfinance Award in 2006. The idea has always been to condense the insights and best practice about this topic into a format that is accessible for those who don’t work directly within it, while extracting, via the specific cases of the Award semi-finalists and finalists, insights on an evolving best practice that can be leveraged by others.

Last year’s publication begins with a primer on the topic: what is displacement and its drivers? How is displacement related to financial exclusion? What challenges do FDPs face, and what do providers face in seeking to serve them? And what are FDPs’ financial and non-financial needs depending on their phase of displacement? The second part of the paper pivots from challenges to solutions, combining some theoretical insights with practical case examples from the ten EMA semi-finalists, before the paper concludes with some ‘lessons learned’ (in the words of the applicant organisations themselves) and then Factors for success: Eight insights on advancing the financial inclusion of FDPs’ — what the e-MFP Award team see as some of the factors that underpin excellence or innovation in this most important field.

Sam and Ed were joined in the panel by Yengi Lobule, CEO of the EMA2025 winner, RUFI, - who presented RUFI’s history and its FDP initiative that won, as well as various challenges and insights that had emerged along that journey. RUFI was founded in South Sudan in 2008 and expanded to Uganda in 2016, is a refugee-led financial institution providing loans, business training, and advocacy to support forcibly displaced persons and host communities.

Deborah Foy was until recently Global Executive Director of Opportunity International (OI) – and consultant to the 2024 EMA team and member of the 2024 EMA High Jury. She talked about the role of development organisations in working with FSPs and some key innovations underway in the sector that she has observed in her time heading up OI.

Finally, Suzanne van Ballekom - Digital Financial Inclusion & Women’s Economic Empowerment Deputy Global Team Lead at UN World Food Programme and board member at FIF UK - covered the role that humanitarian and development organisations play in creating sustainable solutions for FDPs, and the key challenges remaining with respect to advancing inclusion of FDPs.

The event was a great success, with a networking reception generously provided by FIF UK. We look forward to more such collaborations - and thanks to SOAS for hosting. The recording of the event will be available soon.