Wealth is built through a lifelong process of building assets such as land, enterprises, homes and savings. But half of the world's people live on less than $2 a day, and while global economic change has produced gains for many it has produced job loss and uncertainty for others.
Our work in this field seeks to help low-income people generate sustainable incomes, save and plan for the future, and protect themselves against unforeseen economic setbacks. We support a wide range of initiatives aimed at enabling people to exert more control over their future and participate in economic life in meaningful ways. A range of public policies and market inducements can encourage people to save over a lifetime, reducing their economic vulnerability and helping to build their financial resilience.
We support organizations that help people gain access to basic financial services (such as loans, savings accounts and insurance), improve the functioning of housing markets, promote the development of small enterprises that benefit low-income people and encourage people to save.
We support a wide range of initiatives aimed at enabling people to exert more control over their future and participate in economic life.
Key Strategies
Our strategic approaches include:
- Supporting research and policy analysis to develop and preserve public policies that encourage people to save
- Expanding efforts to preserve the value of homeownership for low-income people
- Encouraging financial institutions to provide fairly priced consumer financial products for low-income people
- Increasing the access of poor rural households in developing countries to a range of financial products and business development services
- Improving economic opportunities and livelihoods for residents of rural areas in the United States
- Building knowledge and best practices in the field of development finance