ICTs and Financial inclusion: Who are those left behind in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia?

Financial inclusion and Information and Communication Technologies ICTs underpin inclusive and sustainable development and the commitment to leave no one behind. Both have a substantial role in fast forwarding the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Financial inclusion enables individuals to start saving, obtain loans, start a business, receive remittances from abroad or cash transfers from their governments and therefore improve their lives. ICTs are indispensable in boosting productivity and economic activity, enabling knowledge and information sharing, and broadening the delivery of services, all while expanding networking, participation, and advocacy.

However, the increasing worldwide interconnectivity and the improvement of people’s well‐being through new technologies and financial inclusion have come alongside growing inequalities between countries in terms of infrastructure, investments, and technological absorption, and between people in terms of access to technology, financial services and digital literacy. Many least developed countries and countries with special needs have not been able to build technological capabilities and have lagged behind in advancements of ICT and financial inclusion, while individuals in rural and hard‐to‐reach communities, those at the lower end of the income distribution, and many other people in vulnerable situations have been left behind on digital gains.

The 2030 Agenda calls on Member States to produce high‐quality, timely, reliable and disaggregated data to ensure that no one is being left behind SDG 17.8. Governments and other stakeholders need to move beyond measurement of average progress towards more disaggregated analysis that sheds light on the gaps in access between different groups. An innovative methodological approach used in this study precisely helps policymakers respond to the call of the 2030 Agenda for leaving no one behind.

To explore gaps between population groups and identify who is being left behind in accessing financial services and using ICTs, this study uses the latest available Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys MICS for three countries of Asia and the Pacific: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia. The range of possible financial services is broad – including, among others, deposit and savings accounts, payment services, loans, and insurance – several indicators are available to measure financial inclusion. Similarly, ICTs consist of a wide array of possible assets and services – including telecommunications, television and radio broadcasting, computer hardware, software and electronic media. For the purposes of this analysis, ownership of a bank account is used as a marker of financial inclusion, whereas internet use is used as a marker of access to ICTs.

By using new ways of exploring the observed gaps in bank account ownership and internet use, the paper reviews overall inequality levels in these opportunities. It also identifies the shared characteristics of those population groups that are the furthest behind in access to financial services and ICTs, as well as the intersectionalities that perpetuate patterns of disadvantage.

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