Designing financial services to include rural Haitians

DATES: July 2015 - January 2017

MY ROLE: Strategy Lead, Proposal Manager, Client Relations, Partner Development

Challenge

USAID released a BAA in July 2015, asking the development community, how might we effectively expand financial inclusion in Haiti? They requested a 2-page response by the end of August 2015.

Snapshot

I designed and won a $5m, 3-year program that connects informal rural savings and loan groups to formal credit unions with digital finance tools. Officially launched in January 2017, I worked with USAID, local financial institutions, our staff in Haiti, finance experts, and colleagues in DC to co-create the Haiti Accessible Finance Activity.

Strategy

Responding to donor requests are challenging - they expect a detailed program and program team within a short span of time. I always begin by trying to understand what we need to learn. To help guide me through this, I developed a project development canvas - my take on the business model canvas. It keeps me focused on defining the challenge or constraints, value proposition, my company’s advantages, beneficiaries, key partners, key metrics, and potential private-sector partners that can contribute to the project.

Initially, I create a list composed of my guiding principles and questions I want to be answered. For this project, my list was short:
  • The project has to be organic to ensure sustainability. Haiti has a long history of failed projects and corruption. I wanted to focus on something that was already created by Haitians.
  • Why weren’t financial services reaching rural areas?
  • How much innovation was the client comfortable with?

Our main goal was to create a project that was organic, rather than forcing something new while crossing our fingers hoping it would work. Since we had been working in Haiti for more than 9 years, I had a good understanding of the financial system, both formal and informal. So, we wanted to work with existing, yet informal, savings and lending groups in rural Haiti to transform them into formal groups. Credit unions are modeled similarly to these rural groups and WOCCU has a time- tested model called field officer banking that incorporates groups into their membership while creating individual accounts - allowing for individual and group services. And most importantly, it allows individuals to develop a relationship with formal financial institutions, creating access to products and services they had not had before.

Research

I tend to enjoy this part the most because it brings me out to the field to meet the direct and indirect beneficiaries. First, I conducted a thorough literature review, compiling questions and creating brainstorming notes. I used these notes to figure out who I should meet with while in the country vs virtually as well as to create a list of guiding questions for the interviews.

In Haiti, I conducted around 15 interviews over 2 weeks and held brainstorming sessions with WOCCU’s staff in Haiti. The interviews were with the client (USAID), other donors in the country, potential competitors, NGOs conducting similar or complementary programs, government officials, local bankers, telecommunications operators, fintech companies, and an incubator.

What I learned:
  • Competitive Landscape: It was a crowded field. Almost every organization working in financial services was bidding on the program. We had to highlight our advantage and value proposition over them.
  • Digital finance regulation was improving, albeit slowly.
  • Lack of connection between regulators and what was happening on the ground.
  • Financial institutions were afraid to provide services and products to rural households due to a perceived risk.
  • Limited knowledge of finance and the use of cell phones could hinder fintech growth.
  • Small business growth was limited, as was the drive to innovate and create in the financial sector.

From these insights, we knew we had to focus on the following:
  • Value proposition of our project: private-sector led & incentive-based
  • WOCCU's advantage: 9+ years in Haiti with a great reputation with the client and trusting relationship with local stakeholders

Prototype & Test

July-August 2015: Submission of EOI that proposed 4 different interventions (as written in the project model canvas)
  • Continue to improve the quality and availability of products and services by building institutional capacity and fostering innovation through private-sector partnerships. Within institutions, we will improve their governance and upgrade their management systems, as well as develop their internal capacities to respond to client needs through product and service development, while remaining or becoming profitable;

  • Leveraging and creating entrepreneurial talent in Haiti by partnering with Ecole Superieure d’Infotronique d’Haiti (ESIH) university to facilitate new ideas for meeting financial services challenges;
  • Create a forum linking GOH to the industry to better understand on-the-ground realities and needs; and,
  • Provide financial capacity training and tools for financial institution employees and potential borrowers in partnership with stakeholders and ongoing projects.

haiti model canvas

December 2015: 3-day workshop hosted by USAID Haiti in Port-au-Prince.

The workshop was similar to a trade fair: Each competitor had an easel pad and five minutes to showcase their ideas. Then the client and competitors perused the presentations and asked questions. At this stage, we made a strategic decision to join forces with our competitor to create sister programs that complemented one another. During the workshop, we held brainstorming sessions in our hotel rooms. See the image with paper taped to the window.

haiti model canvas haiti model canvas haiti model canvas

January 2016-August 2017: 5-page concept note, then 4 iterations of the full technical proposal. This included a full staff, budget, activities, and partners. And each iteration was completed within 24 hours to 4 weeks, depending on the client’s request.

Finalize & Launch

We launched the program soon after signing our award in January 2017. I continually monitored its progress, taking note of the tweaks program managers made in order to add improvements to the design process. If you'd like to read more on the project, this is the project site.

Learnings

This experience taught me a lot about myself and how I lead proposal teams. Usually, clients give us budgetary and outcome constraints, which create limitations for our proposal design. Without restrictions, I lost sight of what we could achieve and confined our activities to specific issues. Next time, I plan to think big and add more perspectives during ideation to discuss multiple viewpoints and reach better conclusions.

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