Ensure cross-cutting monitoring & evaluation

Developing a robust M&E framework is crucial to ensure the effectiveness and equity of policies and interventions for women’s digital financial inclusion. An M&E framework can help track progress, identify challenges and opportunities, and inform decision-making processes. Policy makers can follow the steps outlined below to develop such a framework:

1. Have clearly defined objectives and expected outcomes: Policy makers should clearly identify the specific objectives and desired outcomes they aim to achieve.
2. Identify indicators: Policy makers should select appropriate indicators that can effectively measure progress toward the identified objectives. For example, indicators could include the number of women with access to mobile money, the percentage of women who have received financial literacy training, and the number of loans granted to women-led businesses.
3. Set targets and benchmarks: Policy makers should set realistic targets and benchmarks for each indicator to measure progress. These targets should be ambitious enough to drive progress but achievable with the available resources.
4. Develop a data-collection plan and collection responsibilities: Policy makers need to create a comprehensive plan for collecting data on the selected indicators. This plan may involve surveys, interviews, focus group discussions, and other data sources. Improving existing data infrastructure by incorporating sexdisaggregated variables into data-collection formats is essential to create sustainable and cost-effective monitoring mechanisms. Policy makers should also identify who will be responsible for collecting and analyzing the data.
5. Regular monitoring and the need to be agile: Regular M&E activities should be conducted to assess progress toward the defined objectives and outcomes. This may include periodic evaluations, data analysis, and making necessary adjustments to policies and interventions based on the findings.
6. Ensure transparency and accountability: Transparency will foster accountability and ensure that policies and interventions are effective and equitable.

Resource for FSPs

Female Entrepreneurship Resource Point The Women’s Leadership in Small and Medium Enterprises Trust Fund of the World Bank and US Agency for International Development has produced six modules on indicators, measuring key determinants of successful women-led SMEs in developing countries. The purpose of these modules is to identify a common set of questions to include in impact evaluation and more general surveys for measuring performance in small and growthoriented enterprises, as well as potential gender gaps. Specifically, the modules provide a set of standardized questions for measuring core indicators of business outcomes, access to finance, business regulatory environment, human capital, noncognitive skills, and agency that are relevant for a gender-disaggregated analysis.