LightCastle Partners Co-organizes Validation and Dissemination Event for WFP and DWA on Social Behavior Recommendations for Financial Services Agents

As the technical support partner to the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Department of Women Affairs (DWA), LightCastle Partners co-organized a national-level validation workshop and dissemination event to share social behavior recommendations prepared for MFS and Financial Services Agents.

The set of recommendations will guide digital and financial inclusion support to vulnerable women through agent-beneficiary interactions.

The recommendations are part of ongoing interventions to integrate vulnerable women and social safety net payment (SSNP) beneficiaries into the digital financial ecosystem, which also includes training of trainers sessions and learning modules for vulnerable groups. [Links to previous WFP workshops: TOT and Sensitizing DWA Officials]

Regulators, industry players, and development partners welcomed the recommendations and expressed their commitment to a progressive and inclusive payment system that serves the needs of all beneficiaries.

The session was presided over by Farida Pervin, the Director General of DWA, who handed over the Social Behavior Recommendations to the special guest, Muhommad Badiuzzaman Dider, Director, Payments Systems Department of Bangladesh Bank.

The session focused on how MFS agents and agent banking networks are the first points of contact that can be effectively utilized for ensuring better service delivery to beneficiaries at the ‘last mile’.

The Social Behavioral Recommendations were positively received by representatives from MFS providers and financial institutions. Regulators such as the Microcredit Regulatory Authority and Bangladesh Bank shared their perspectives on how financial institutions can take cues from these recommendations to better serve the underserved. Enablers such as a2i and UNCDF expressed the need for gender inclusivity at all spectrums of the ecosystem.