These snapshots of gender and financial inclusion provide a glance at some of the ways women interact with different forms of money in a shifting global financial landscape. Based on research conducted by IMTFI researchers all around the world, these snapshots address the way gender relations get reworked when money circulates through digital technologies and is regulated by new financial institutions.

Research from the Philippines, Kenya, Paraguay, Nigeria, Mexico and India demonstrates that women’s access to and engagements with money are extremely varied and strongly influenced by entrenched socio-cultural and economic modes of exclusion. Therefore women employ a host of different financial management strategies as means of empowerment – from hiding money in coke bottles, to rearing ruminants to speculating in gold. Moreover, financial education of women emerges as an important prerequisite for financial inclusion and one IMTFI research team recommends the use of cartoons and visual media to achieve that goal.

In IMTFI's PERSPECTIVES blog series, IMTFI fellows take on the recent demonetization move in India through 7 posts on the IMTFI Blog from January-February 2017. This synthesis serves as a collation of the 7 blogposts.

The series aims to foster an open dialogue on issues around money, technology and financial inclusion for the world’s poor. Individual contributions reflect contributors' own reflections on recent events - based on their research and areas of expertise. The topic of demonetization will conclude with a curated commentary by IMTFI on key themes, important questions, and what we can learn from these contributions for digital financial inclusion going forward.

#1 - Demonetization and its Discontents (1/24/2017) by Janaki Srinivasan

#2 - The Recent Indian Demonetisation and Cash Exclusion (1/26/2017) by Debashis Acharya

#3 - The Dangerous Liaisons between Demonetization and the Indian Informal Economy (Part 1) (1/30/2017) by Isabelle Guérin, Santosh Kumar and G Venkatasubramanian

#4 - The Dangerous Liaisons between Demonetization and the Indian Informal Economy (Part 2) (2/13/2017) by Isabelle Guéin, Santosh Kumar and G Venkatasubramanian

#5 - The Recent Indian Demonetization and Cash Exclusion (Part 2) (2/1/2017) by Debashis Acharya, V V Subbarao, and T K Venkatachalapathy

#6 - Before Money isn't Money Anymore....(2/7/2017) by Vivian Dzokoto

#7 - Insights, Challenges, and Ways Forward (2/22/2017) by Ursula Dalinghaus, Nima Lamu Yolmo, and Janaki Srinivasan