Financial inclusion is crucial for sustainable development, offering individuals and communities access to vital financial services that can significantly improve their livelihoods. Despite global progress in expanding financial services, a persistent gender gap remains, particularly affecting women from vulnerable groups and hindering their economic empowerment. The World Economic Forum's 2022 Global Gender Gap Report  estimates it will take an average of 132 years to achieve global gender equality, underlining the magnitude of the problem. According to the Global Findex Database 2021, 63 percent of women in Ghana have formal financial accounts, signifying progress in increasing women's access to financial institutions. However, the gender gap in Ghana has grown significantly in the last five years, from 8 to 11 percent. Reducing this 11 percent account ownership gap between men and women aligns with the government's financial inclusion goals.

The UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) recognizes the pivotal role of Sex-Disaggregated Data (S-DD) in addressing gender disparities and has actively integrated this recognition into the European Union-funded GrEEn Project. Our efforts are focused on leveraging data to empower women, recognizing them as  Builders of Digital Economies in Ghana. In collaboration with the Fintech and Innovation Office (FIO) of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), UNCDF has undertaken an initial assessment to understand the needs, challenges, and opportunities with using S-DD. The goal is to identify and address gender disparities, tailor financial services and products to the unique needs of women, and inform policy decisions in the financial landscape.

As a concrete step toward exploring the potential of S-DD in advancing women's financial inclusion in Ghana, UNCDF organized a half-day workshop that brought together over thirty payment service providers. The workshop discussed the payment service providers’ challenges in collecting, analyzing and reporting to the regulator S-DD for women's financial inclusion. Specific objectives included identifying barriers hindering practical analysis and utilization of S-DD, understanding reasons for the failure to collect S-DD and fostering knowledge sharing and collaboration among stakeholders to promote its use. 

Insights from participants during the breakout session unveiled that they currently generate qualitative and quantitative reports focusing on product performance, transaction patterns, and segment profitability. Participants indicated that reporting to the Central Bank on disaggregated data, particularly in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) cases, is indeed feasible. However, they acknowledged that achieving this might take time due to potential gaps between the data they currently collect and submit to the regulator and what the regulator's new reporting requests might be. They added that the absence of industry-wide insights based on the consolidated data submitted to the Central Bank by the payment providers leads to a lack of understanding of industry trends in women's access and usage of financial services. These industry trends could help payment providers streamline processes and better refine products and services for the benefit of women. The session also covered various tools for data collection, including Google Forms, Google Analytics, USSD, and website analytics. In addition, participants underscored the importance of data validation methods, such as selfies, Ghana cards, (a valid verification document for Ghanaian and non-Ghanaians that uses biometric technology for ID purposes), and identification details provided by credit bureaus.

The workshop participants provided various recommendations, including working closely with the regulator to bridge existing gaps and standardizing the collection of essential data points. They also suggested that the regulator should provide analyses on reports to assist payment providers in refining their products. Additionally, participants recommended upskilling their staff in data mining, data analysis, programming, data modeling tools, and visualization to help reshape data.

UNCDF will share insights from the workshop with the regulator to consolidate their collaborative efforts. The feedback provided by payment service providers during the workshop is significant for shaping policies and strategies to advance women's financial inclusion. The regulator can leverage this feedback to inform the development and review of regulatory frameworks encouraging payment providers to prioritize collecting sex-disaggregated data. This can contribute to reducing the gender gap in financial inclusion and fostering a more equitable and responsive financial ecosystem in Ghana.