Time: 13:00-15:00 (UK Time), Wednesday, 15 December 2021
Presenter: Dr. Abbi M. Kedir, University of Sheffield
Co-author: Dr. Euphrasie Kouamé, United Nations Development Programme, Yaoundé, Cameroon
Chair: Professor Victor Murinde, SOAS University of London
Online venue: Click here to join the seminar on Microsoft Teams (For any inquiry about how to join the online seminar, please contact Dr. Meng Xie: xm1@soas.ac.uk
Abstract
This paper examines the role of financial technology (FinTech) in improving the occupational choices of women and the youth in the global South. We analyse the link between FinTech and entrepreneurship, drawing on large data sets from central and western Africa that hold important and novel policy implications for the wider Africa region. Our study helps to clarify if and when financial technology use may translate into enhanced entrepreneurship and self-employment, and how it can contribute to the improvement of the livelihoods of women and the youth. The article calls for a critical view of financial inclusion on the continent and highlights the importance of considering livelihood and resource access patterns that contributes to inclusive growth. Most of the existing research on financial inclusion in Africa has focused on identifying the factors that affect the access to and use of formal bank-based finance. In a similar vein, the expanding mobile money use in Africa has often been viewed as a contributing factor to formal financial inclusion. We argue that the dynamics involved are much more complex, and FinTech enters into and interacts with a sophisticated web of informal and formal financial institutions and transactional patterns. Disaggregating our analysis by gender and age, we explore how the use of mobile money has impacted entrepreneurship, using large consumer survey data from Burkina Faso and Cameroon. The data collected via Finscope Consumer Surveys covers 5066 individuals in Burkina Faso and 6826 individuals in Cameroon and is drawn from both rural and urban areas in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Our empirical findings show that the access to and use of mobile money is significantly associated with a higher likelihood of starting entrepreneurial ventures for women. However, there are several critical challenges involved. The article presents a detailed review of these and advances policy recommendations with important implications for the development of FinTech on the continent.
Presenter
Dr. Abbi M. Kedir is a senior lecturer in international business in the Management School of the University of Sheffield, UK. He got his PhD in Economics from the University of Nottingham in 2003. In addition to long years of services in UK academia, he has experience of working both in government and international organisations such as the United Nations. In addition to his numerous peer-reviewed international publications, book chapters and commissioned reports in areas such as entrepreneurship, international development and international business, he serves as a member of editorial board of international journals such as Journal of Development Studies, and Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research.