India’s G20 Sherpa and former NITI Aayog chief Amitabh Kant said that the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) needs to have a gender lens. To make DPI work for women, national IDs, universal banking, and digital payments infrastructure are key, he added.
“One issue that does not often get identified is what DPI means for women and how it can benefit them. I want to emphasize the need to have a gender lens to it,” he said at the ‘Making Finance Work for Women 2023’ summit in Mumbai, organized by Women’s World Banking, addressing over 300 delegates from 30 countries. “Lack of identification, mobile phone ownership, payment infrastructure, open credit and commerce, and relevant financial products have to be addressed with a gender lens so that women are not left behind,” he added.
He highlighted the urgency to design solutions and policy reforms to keep women at the center and ride on existing DPI rails. “With the launch of the Jan Dhan savings accounts and social benefits payments into those, we have created a platform for bringing over 230 million un- and under-served women to engage more deeply with the formal financial sector,” he added.
MUFG Bank, others’ joint initiatives towards Sustainable Finance Platform
