Call for Learning Space Concepts

In light of the afore-mentioned, we have prepared a set of questions and prompts to consider as you reflect on the design of your Learning Space concept:

• What do preliminary research findings and insights tell us about product sets, practices, and distribution channels that are helping during this COVID-19 crisis? What practices particularly hindered? What are some successful strategies that are being utilized by those Financial Services Providers (FSPs) that continued operations through lockdown, or restarted as soon as lockdown ended? What are we learning about the characteristics of ‘resilient’ communities and institutions and can these lessons be adapted to other contexts? 
• Given the four decades of progress for populations and economies, what evidence is there that achievements in financial inclusion are helping communities to be more resilient to handle the COVID-19 disaster? What role has social capital played in enabling them to manage risk and stay resilient? How will current experience change practices around informal and formal finance for communities?
• What are we learning in this pandemic, and in recent history, about the prerequisites for successful service delivery models? How should digital service delivery, agent networks, and person-technology balance be improved for greater resilience, safety and risk management?
• The COVID-19 crisis is likely to exacerbate the digital divide in financial services. What have we learnt so far about ‘what works’ to improve digital financial inclusion? What are some of the digital strategies/innovations FSPs have been using in order to strengthen financial inclusion during these unusual times? How can emerging and innovative approaches/technologies be leveraged to foster greater inclusion going forward?
• What will it take to develop sustainable service delivery mechanisms in areas currently underserved by telecommunications infrastructure, particularly at a time when donors are driven to prioritize immediate disaster recovery needs over longer-term community resilience?
• What policy advocacy is necessary to ensure government support for microenterprises, poor communities, and the FSPs that serve them in these times of COVID-19? What is necessary to make this advocacy successful (for example how can we facilitate cross-sector collaboration)?
• What risk management changes should be implemented by FSPs serving very poor communities in order to protect against local, regional and global crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic? How should they be supported by donors and government agencies?
• What examples and best practices exemplify “disruptive collaboration” (between NGOs, donors, governments, FSPs, Fintechs, etc.) in the development, support and delivery of financial services to the poorest communities? In particular, how can FSPs effectively partner with Fintechs and donors to fund and implement service offerings and delivery for the post-COVID environment? 
• What examples exist of economic, regulatory and social policy-making that are benefited and supported very poor communities and the FSPs that serve them? In particular where have country-level networks influenced policy and how do these examples inform policy-making in other contexts?  What changes are most urgent in NGOs, government policies, regulations, and financial institutions to alleviate the short- to medium-term economic and social impacts of COVID-19 in very poor communities? 
• What financial inclusion lessons are being learned from the effects of this pandemic on internally and externally displaced persons, and the communities in which they have settled?

In light of the aforementioned, we have prepared a set of questions and prompts to consider as you reflect on the design of your Learning Space concept:

• Humanitarian and development practitioners often rely on standards and frameworks to ensure programming and impact that is sustainable and equitable
  • What does an inclusive response to the COVID-19 pandemic look like?
  • What should all humanitarian and development actors be doing to ensure the safety, well-being and rights of marginalized people in a pandemic?
• Humanitarian and development actors often claim to reach “the most vulnerable” in their programs.
  • Who is truly the most vulnerable?
  • How does vulnerability change based on the context and how is this measured?
  • What new forms of vulnerability do we see emerging in the COVID-19 context?
• Terminology such as “diversity & inclusion,” “diversity, equity & inclusion” and “intersectionality” is thrown around more and more in the development space.
  • What does an intersectional approach to programming look like in practice
  • When is it appropriate and needed, and when are other lenses more useful?
• The political underpinnings of global development policy and practice are not new, but the dire need we are facing is.
  • Is the process of setting the global development agenda sufficiently inclusive and diverse?
  • What does the movement to decolonize and localize development mean for the status quo of how development projects and organizations are currently funded, led, and operated?
• The adage is: people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
  • Does internal diversity & inclusion within organization’s staffing structures translate into more diverse & inclusive projects and programs?
  • How can organizations create equitable and inclusive hiring processes?
  • How can organizations support underrepresented staff to grow and thrive in the sector? What role do senior leaders and boards play in this context?  
• COVID-19 related restrictions on movement and travel mean that many organizations are shifting project and monitoring activities to digital and technology-enabled solutions.
  • What innovative yet inclusive solutions are showing early signs of success?
  • How do we ensure such solutions reach those left behind in the digital world?
  • How do we create and foster inclusive digital spaces?
• The COVID-19 crisis is deepening and reconfiguring pre-existing inequalities and exposing vulnerabilities in social, political and economic systems which are in turn amplifying the impacts of the pandemic.
  • What does building back better mean through an inclusion lens?
  • How do we change the conditions that exacerbate vulnerability in order to build back more inclusive societies and markets?
• The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the vulnerability of the global market systems. As restrictions on movement and the collapse of markets have reduced opportunities and access to resources drastically:
  • What roles do individual and systemic resilience play?
  • How does the situation differ for those who have been made newly vulnerable by the COVID-19 crisis?
• How can we build back more resilient individuals, communities and markets?