📝 usncan Note: How A $20 Phone Could Power Climate Resilient Growth
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Flower farmers Jhony y Elizabhet Carrasco in Cochabamba (Bolivia), clients of Accion partner, BancoSol:
Accion
A new wave of mobile-led financial inclusion is unlocking millions of new savers and entrepreneurs. The opportunity, and the challenge, is to ensure this new capital builds climate and economic resilience in the world’s most vulnerable economies.
The same mobile phone used to message family or check the weather could soon become the most powerful tool for economic security in vulnerable countries. Over the last decade, mobile-led financial inclusion has brought millions into the formal economy, expanding savings, enabling credit and opening new markets.
While 1.3 billion adults remain unbanked, with climate shocks, inflation, and political instability intensifying, simply having an account is no longer enough. The design of financial products will determine whether these gains help communities withstand crisis, or leave them exposed to new risks.
A Decade of Progress In The Palm Of Your Hand
The World Bank’s Global Findex Database 2025 offers a striking statistic: 75% of adults in low- and middle-income countries now have a financial account, up from 41% in 2011. That’s an 80% increase in just over a decade, driven largely by mobile technology.
Michael Schlein, president & chief executive of global non-profit Accion, calls it a remarkable shift: “Over the last decade, we’ve made remarkable progress expanding access for people the banks have long ignored. The new Global Findex 2025 shows that, today, 75% of adults in low- and middle-income countries now have a financial account – that’s an 80% increase since 2011. But access is just the first step toward having and using financial services that can boost resilience and expand opportunities. That’s our vision. We have more work to do.”
From Access To Resilience
Schlein notes the scale of the change saying, “The report reveals a surge in formal savings – a key driver of financial resilience – with 40% of adults in low and middle-income economies saving formally using an account, a 16-percentage point increase from 2021. That’s great progress, but there is much more to be done. Almost 50% of people in developing countries still say they could not cover one month’s expenses in the event of an emergency.”
That’s the resilience gap. Millions more people now have secure places to store money, build credit histories, and participate in the formal economy. But the fact that half of people in developing countries still can’t cover a month’s expenses shows that most are operating with dangerously thin buffers. In an era of escalating climate-related floods, storms, and droughts, that’s not just a household vulnerability, it’s a systemic economic risk.
Access to an account is only the first milestone. True financial resilience requires adequate savings, affordable insurance, and emergency credit that can prevent a temporary shock from becoming a long-term economic setback. As Schlein points out, “This is critical to address as natural disasters become more prevalent.”
Climate-linked shocks are already shaping behavior. Schlein adds, “Recent research by the Center of Financial Inclusion at Accion showed that micro and small entrepreneurs who had already experienced climate shocks were more likely to invest in climate adaptation, such as stockpiling materials or reinforcing their business premises. Yet most relied on cash, savings, friends, and family when a disaster struck. Insurance payouts are virtually absent as a coping strategy.”
Inclusive Finance As A Resilience Engine
Speaking at the CGAP Symposium 2025, Sophie Sirtaine, managing director of the World Bank-housed Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), underscored teh stakes saying, “Shocks have indeed increased in intensity, frequency, and magnitude, whether we are thinking of economic pressures, financial crises, cyber risks, climate events, or of the pandemic and other health related shocks, and these shocks seem to have combined forces to hit us just harder.”
She describes resilience as the ability to recover without falling back into poverty saying, “A world that is resilient to these many shocks is one where everybody would have the ability to face, manage through, and recover from a shock in a way that is not regressive; where they don’t have to reduce food consumption, don’t need to take girls out of school, don’t have to turn to fire sales of assets; and where they have the ability to rebuild assets and sources of income after the shock.”
Evidence from CGAP’s Impact Pathfinder shows how inclusive financial tools make a difference. She explained that it showed that, “Digital payments, including transfers from friends and families and remittances, savings, insurance payouts, and credit are all associated with the ability to smooth consumption during a shock, avoiding fire asset sales or other regressive strategies, as well as with better and faster recovery after a shock.”
The examples span continents: in Mozambique for example, after 2021 flooding, households with e-wallets received faster transfers and built both short- and term resilience. In Sudan, after conflict erupted, people with e-wallets navigated daily life without carrying large amounts of cash in unsafe conditions. In Kenya, women in group savings schemes increased investments in preventative health items by 66%, from bed nets to clean water filters.
When Design Determines Impact
Not all financial inclusion is created equal however. Recent research from the Center for Financial Inclusion illustrates why the design of such financial products matter. Schlein explains,“Evidence from our research in the Philippines shows that fisher households that could access loans from MFIs or savings groups after a crisis were able to use them for consumption and repairing damaged assets. However, discussions with local mayors and government officials revealed that access to credit could also lead to investments in unsustainable gear or practices if not paired with conservation safeguards.” Yet, he adds, “When appropriately structured, financial tools can enable fishers to diversify their livelihoods, adopt climate-resilient strategies, and reduce pressure on marine resources — strengthening both economic security and environmental sustainability.”
Designing Climate-Smart Financial Tools
Schlein points to Accion’s ClimaFii Alliance as a model saying, “Through our work with the ClimaFii Alliance, Accion is working with financial service providers to design affordable financial products that make emission-reducing technologies available to micro-entrepreneurs across sub-Saharan Africa and in India. These technologies include solar-powered solutions for smallholder farmers, electric vehicles and cooling systems for delivery drivers, clean cooking solutions for restaurant owners, and recycling tools for garment manufacturers.”
Accion is also betting on early scalable solutions adding, “We also make early-stage equity investments in startups that include Apollo Agriculture, Pula, Semaai and Verqor that provide quality inputs, market data, digital services, credit and insurance to smallholder farmers in rural areas. Many of the 1.3 billion people globally who today are left out (or the 300 million with inactive accounts) live in remote rural areas. We need to find new ways to reach and better serve them.”
The $20 Growth Engine
According to the Findex, 86% of adults worldwide now own a mobile phone, and mobile money use is surging. In Sub-Saharan Africa, mobile money account ownership jumped from 27% to 40% in just three years; in Latin America and the Caribbean, from 22% to 37%.
This connectivity turns basic devices into entry points for savings, payments, and, if designed well, climate adaptation finance. As Sirtaine put it, “Inclusive finance can complement government efforts to build societal resilience in a way that empowers people to take care of themselves. In fact, it provides a largely private solution to what is typically thought of as a public problem.”
The challenge, as both Schlein and Sirtaine note, is not just expanding access but but ensuring that every new account, loan, or insurance policy strengthens resilience, addresses climate risks, and leaves no one behind. The next wave of growth will be measured not just by how many people join the financial system, but by how well that system protects them when it matters most.
The $20 phone has already proven it can transform access. The next decade will show whether it can transform resilience, and that will depend on the choices made now by governments, financial institutions, and innovators worldwide.
