A quarter of the world’s 65 million forcibly displaced people (FDPs) live in sub-Saharan Africa. This includes 4.4 million refugees (who have been forced to flee their own countries) and 10.7 million internally displaced people.
The number of FDPs is growing every year and displacements are also lasting longer. For example, 42% of refugees have been displaced for 5 or more years. Increasingly forcibly displaced populations tend to be geographically stable, urban, connected and economically active. However, they remain excluded from financial services that could be vital to their survival or livelihood.
Large refugee populations exist in many countries in which the
FSD Network has a presence, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The FSD Africa approach aims to challenge the status quo of aid delivery to the FDP population in Africa. By energising financial markets to deliver welfare-enhancing outcomes for FDPs, we hope to complement the traditional direct delivery of relief.
We believe, with the right rules and incentives, the market could deliver to certain segments of the FDP population efficiently, at scale, and on a long-term basis. Through a combination of grants and technical assistance FSD Africa, in partnership with country FSDs, aims to drive financial inclusion of refugees and host communities by supporting financial service providers to develop, pilot and scale up products suited for this market.
Currently, we are supporting refugee financial inclusion projects in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).