"Rural development is central to realizing the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda because nearly 80 percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas (UNDESA 2021). Moreover, rural populations have less access to education, health, electricity, sanitation, and other services, leading to marked rural-urban disparities, discontent, and discord.
It is widely accepted that financial services for the poor and excluded is a key enabler in advancing several SDGs. However, increasing access to, and usage of, financial services in rural areas is not easy. These areas tend to be poor, remote, sparsely populated, and poorly connected by weak infrastructure. This makes rural markets more expensive to serve for financial service providers and less attractive compared to urban markets. Digital financial services (DFS) can help lower costs for providers, which is essential for reaching poor customers at scale."
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Source: Sai Krishna Kumaraswamy, Alice Nègre, CGAP.
Illustration: Abhijit Banerjee, 2016 CGAP Photo Contest