MSc Digital Development

This course unit focuses on digital finance for global development. It discusses current policy, practitioner and industry strategies and initiatives to leverage digital technologies to facilitate access to formal financial services for population segments in the Global South lacking collateral and thus excluded from credit, insurance, and remittances. It examines the emergence and the transformation of digital finance for development as a field of policy and practice situated at the intersection of digital development and financial inclusion. In so doing, it aims at prompting a reflection among the students on: 1) the variety of interests behind the heterogeneous assemblage of actors, including development agencies, national and international regulators, philanthropic entities and tech firms, designing, implementing and governing digital financial services to address development goals such as poverty alleviation, social and humanitarian protection, women’s entrepreneurship, and sustainable agriculture; 2) the contextual peculiarities of different intervention strategies and business models; and 3) processes of digital extraction and adverse digital incorporation in which digital technologies allow powerful actors to extract value at the expense of others.

1. Introduce key concepts and different perspectives on the role of digital financial services (DFS) for global development;
2. Situate digital finance for development at the intersection of the broader debates on financial inclusion and digital development;
3. Provide an overview of current deployments of DFS to address specific development challenges, including poverty reduction, food security, gender equality, humanitarian protection, and environmental sustainability;
4. Examine the role of different actors (the state, international and national regulators, the private sector, local communities) in designing, implementing and governing DFS-driven interventions;
5. Discuss how development and humanitarian agencies, and community-based organisations, have integrated DFS into their operations;
6. Encourage a critical approach to the evaluation of hegemonic discourses of digital finance drawing on subaltern, feminist, and decolonial perspectives to identify and analyse dynamics of adverse digital incorporation;
7. Develop transferable skills, including building and defending an argument, participating in group discussions and delivering ideas in a variety of formats, including verbally, in writing and as a podcast.

On completion of this unit successful students will be able to:

• Define key concepts in academic, policy and practitioner discussions on digital finance for development, intended as the use of digital technologies to facilitate access to formal finance for population segments in the Global South excluded from credit, insurance, and safe remittances;
• Locate digital finance for development within the broader discussion on global development;
• Identify the role of different actors in shaping the trajectory and governance of digital finance for addressing global development goals;
• Connect the debate on digital finance for development to the broader SDGs agenda

Overview

The course will be divided into two parts. The first part (Weeks 1 to 4) will provide students with the conceptual foundations of digital finance for development and reflect on the rise and transformation of digital financial services applied to development goals in the Global South. The second part (Weeks 5 to 10) will link digital finance to specific development goals, including poverty alleviation, humanitarian protection, food security, environmental sustainability, and gender equality, and draw insights from best practices of inclusive digital financial services.

Indicative weekly lecture and tutorial schedule

• Week 1: Digital finance between digital development and financial inclusion
• Week 2: The rise of mobile money
• Week 3: Fintech for development
• Week 4: Building digital payment ecosystems
• Week 5: The digitalization of social protection payments
• Week 6: DFS for humanitarian assistance
• Week 7: DFS for farmers and agricultural value chains
• Week 8: DFS and climate finance
• Week 9: DFS and gender
• Week 10: Human-centered design and participatory fintech models

Tutorials:

1. Case study analysis 1
2. Case study analysis 2
3. Assignment briefing and Podcast production 1
4. Podcast production 2
5. Assignment support

Learning and teaching and will be centred around 10 weekly lectures and five tutorials.

Lectures will combine presentation of the learning material, and interactive activities. Reading lists and slides for each lecture will be posted on Blackboard.

The tutorials will be oriented to the group assignment (4 students) and provide transferable skills to communicate relevant knowledge and insights on different aspects of digital finance for development to a non-academic audience. Specifically, the role of the tutorials vis-à-vis the lectures will be to learn how to 1) select and analyse a case study (a fintech or a digital financial inclusion initiative); 2) write a podcast script; 3) use audio-editing software such as Audacity to organise audio materials around a consistent and compelling narrative.

Instructions for each tutorial (including how to upload the assignments) and examples of development-focused podcasts will be posted on Blackboard.

• Define key concepts in academic, policy and practitioner discussions on digital finance for development, intended as the use of digital technologies to facilitate access to formal finance for population segments in the Global South excluded from credit, insurance, and safe remittances;
• Locate digital finance for development within the broader discussion on global development;
• Identify the role of different actors in shaping the trajectory and governance of digital finance for addressing global development goals.

• Critically engage with the academic and grey literature on digital finance for global development;
• Compare different theoretical perspectives to a variety of digital financial services (credit, insurance, remittances) in the context of global development;
• Use scholarly reviews and primary sources to appraise policy and industry approaches to the design and implementation of digital finance for development initiatives;
• Draw on subaltern, feminist, and decolonial approaches to deconstruct hegemonic discourses on digital finance for development and identify forms of adverse digital incorporation;
• Connect the debate on digital finance for development to the broader SDGs agenda

• Use online resources to find cases of digital finance for development;
• Analyse case studies of digital finance applied to specific development goals;
• Outline a podcast script;
• Use digital tools to produce audio content;

• Develop and defend an argument in academic and specialist discussions;
• Engage constructively in teamwork by recognising and identifying views of others and understanding group dynamics;
• Communicate ideas in a variety of formats, including verbally, in writing and as a podcast, to specialist and non–specialist audiences.

Other: Practical activity: group work (3-4 persons) – design and production of a 10 min podcast addressing a specific application of digital finance discussed in class. (20%)

• Podcast: Feedback to each group is provided by course tutor following submission of the podcast;
• Essay: Tailored feedback on the individual report in TurnItin via Blackboard within SEED’s guidelines

Core readings:

Kuada, J. (2019). Financial inclusion and the sustainable development goals. Extending financial inclusion in Africa (pp. 259-277)

Bernards, N. (2022) A Critical History of Poverty Finance: Colonial Roots and Neoliberal Failures. Pluto Press (Chapter 7)

Bateman, M., Duvendack, M., & Loubere, N. (2019). Is fin-tech the new panacea for poverty alleviation and local development ? Contesting Suri and Jack ’ s M-Pesa findings published in Science. Review of African Political Economy, 0(0), 1–16.

Jack, W. and Suri, T. (2011). “Mobile Money: The Economics of M-PESA.” NBER Working Paper No. 16721. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. https:// www.nber.org/papers/w16721

Gabor, D., & Brooks, S. (2016). The digital revolution in financial inclusion: international development in the fintech era. New Political Economy, 0(6), 1–14.

Langley, P. & Leyshon, A. (2022): Neo-colonial credit: FinTech platforms in Africa, Journal of Cultural Economy

Iazzolino, G. and Mann, L. 2019: Harvesting data: who benefits from platformization of agricultural finance in Kenya? Developing Economics. Available at: https://developingeconomics.org/2019/03/29/ harvesting-data-who-benefits-from-platformization- of-agricultural-finance-in-kenya/

Natile, S. (2020) The Exclusionary Politics of Digital Financial Inclusion: Mobile money, gendered walls. London: Routledge. (First Chapter)

Bateman, M. and Amorim Teixera, F. (2022) The Promises and Perils of Investor-Driven Fintech: Forging People-Centered alternatives. Transnational Institute