The Best of Both Worlds
Revealing Lessons from the Field with Findings from the Data
May 7 in Washington DC.
At InterMedia, our research occurs in two starkly different domains…or worlds.
For half of the year, we are in the field, conducting face-to-face interviews in some of the poorest countries across Africa and Asia. Our research teams face the elements and absorb the realities of being in the field for months on end. What they always find in the field is a place of contextual richness. It’s a place where we learn what consumers do and have, think and feel. It’s a place where we see the difficulty a woman subsistence farmer has feeding her family, and the advantage a son sees when he can easily send money back to his rural family.
In the world of data collection, this is research in its purest form.
For the other half of the year, we are on our computers, working in our statistical software packages, poring over the numbers coming from our earlier work in the field. Here, our struggles center around questions such as, “What’s causing this movement?” “Why aren’t we seeing an increase?” “What are we learning from consumers?”and the ever-important “What does this all mean?”
In the world of analysis and insights, this is research that incites change.
Bringing these two worlds together is our mission — developing strategic findings that never lose the richness of their origin.
On Thursday, May 7, 2015, the InterMedia team will share the results of cutting-edge demand-side research in a panel discussion on digital financial inclusion within eight of the poorest countries across Africa and Asia.
This research is part of InterMedia’s Financial Inclusion Insights (FII) program, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor initiative. InterMedia and expert panelists will tackle tough questions about how financial inclusion stakeholders are working through these challenges, seizing opportunities to push forward, and leveraging demand-side behaviors to close the financial divide.
InterMedia will share cross-country learnings around:
- Financial behaviors that can translate into product usage
- Economic vulnerabilities necessitating financial need and desire
- Gender divides imposing upon digital usage and adoption
- Factors that attract and engage consumers in financial services
- Demographic and behavioral dynamics that consumer adoption and usage patterns
Our expert panelists will then engage on what this means for:
- Investments in financial services products
- Program development and interventions for improving product access
- Practical solutions for on-the-ground implementation
Panelists:
Ms. Kay McGowan, Digital Finance Lead and Senior Policy Advisor at USAID
Mr. Paul Breloff, Managing Director, Accion Venture Lab
Mr. Alex Counts, President and CEO, Grameen Foundation
We hope you will be able to join us for Financial Access and the Developing World: Mobilizing Consumer Insights for Market Action at 8:30 AM on May 7, at the Center for Global Development, 2055 L Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036. Please RSVP using this link.
We know what the reality is.
And we know what the possibilities are.
Colleen is InterMedia’s director of research and Ron is FII’s program lead.
Email us at learchc@intermedia.org and cohnr@intermedia.org.