Evaluating the impact of financial Inclusion on rural development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Shifidi, Lovisa

Evaluating the impact of financial Inclusion on rural development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Thesis / Dissertation

2022

Abstract

The financial services sector in Sub-Saharan countries is one of the principal formal and informal employers. Financial inclusion in Africa has been described as poor and needs more attention as compared to other regions. Record based on previous research shows that the link between rural development and financial inclusion has been focused on emerging economies. The majority of the previous research analysed the association between financial inclusion and economic growth or demographic factors. The rural communities have historically experienced challenges in accessing financial services and products, with banks' availability being very low based on certain variables such as infrastructure development, electricity, water, and sanitation, which has limited the sector's growth. Therefore, it is imperative to gauge the relationship between access to financial services and rural communities' growth across the Sub-Saharan African region. To examine the effects of financial inclusion on rural development, the research sought to firstly, explore whether an association exists between financial inclusion and rural development and secondly, determine whether a granger causality exists between rural development and financial inclusion. The research employed the Generalised Method of Moments technique covering 23 economies spanning from 2011 to 2020. The results from GMM indicated that financial inclusion is statistically significant in influencing rural communities' development in the SSA region. Additionally, the sensitivity test results revealed that financial inclusion maintained similar significance suggesting that the heavily indebted status of a country does not impact the relationship. Lastly, the granger causality results showed a uni-directional relationship between financial inclusion and rural development. These findings strengthen the notion that in Sub-Saharan Africa, rural development can be heartened by financial inclusion

Keywords

development finance

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