Financial inclusion is a major issue, as more than three-quarters of the numbers of poor people do not have access to financial products and services. The key objective of this book is to provide practical case studies of financial inclusion, with examples from Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Essam Yassin Mohammed is Senior Economist, Sustainable Markets Group, at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), London, UK.

Zenebe Bashaw Uraguchi is Senior Advisor, Market Systems Development, and Programme Coordinator, Eastern Europe Unit, for Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, Switzerland.

1. Introduction 2. From Access to Progress: Setting Our Sights on a Worthier Goal 3. The Bangladesh Experience on Financial Inclusion: A Market Systems Review 4. Financial Inclusion: Understanding Concept, Barriers and Measurement 5. Towards inclusion through lessons from informal money lenders 6. Extending access to the formal financial system: the Banking Correspondent business model 7. Savings as Forward Payments: Innovations on Mobile Money Platforms 8. Mobile Money and Financial Inclusion: The Case of Susu Operations in Ghana 9. Towards a gender transformative approach to financial inclusion: Lessons from CARE's Village Savings and Loan Associations in sub-Saharan Africa 10. Gender-based barriers and opportunities to financial inclusion: New evidence from Ghana 11. Islamic Finance Approach to Financial Inclusion to Enhance Shared-Prosperity 12. Vulnerability Reduction Efficacy of Financial Inclusion to Climate and Economic Changes: Evidences, Bottlenecks and Way Forward 13. Green Microedit-Assisted Microenterprises in a Wetland Area of Bangladesh and its Implications for Women Empowerment and Ecological Sustainability 14. Where to from here?