Financial services in refugee hosting areas: Can they promote inclusion? Lessons from the SHARPE project in Ethiopia

Digital financial inclusion is important to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Digital financial tools, such as mobile money, can, in principle, be used by anyone with a cell phone. Mobile money and services surrounding mobile money can help reduce poverty by helping increase remittances from labour migrants, helping households to weather negative shocks to income, and encouraging investments such as in farms or in self-employment activities. An extension of this logic is that, in refugee hosting areas, digital financial inclusion through mobile money can potentially play a role in improving the economic inclusion of refugees. This evidence brief shares findings from a project developing a mobile money system in the Somali region of Ethiopia and discusses ways that policies can help catalyse the use of mobile money in such regions.