The New America Foundation's Global Savings and Social Protection initiative - with the generous support of CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor), the Citi Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Nike Foundation - is developing a multi-faceted, multi-stakeholder body of work to enable the global creation and advancement of sound, effective and efficient savings-linked social protection models. To that end, we are gathering and analyzing information about global cash transfer programs to identify and facilitate opportunities for recipients to build their asset base and increase their resiliency.
The Global Savings and Social Protection initiative has 'heat-mapped' the composite variables that influence a country's potential to implement savings-linked social protection models. This initial map shows 11 different variables relating to a country's payment infrastructure, and a country's score of 1-5 on a variable corresponds to its relative quintile; that is to say, India's score on ATM's per 100,000 adults is a '2' because its data falls in the second quintile (between the 20th and 40th percentile). Each variable is used to compute a composite Payment Infrastructure score. Roll over or click a country to view individual indicators. Use the buttons above to switch between map layers for each indicator.
Easy and convenient access to a variety of financial services is necessary in order to truly enable asset building among participants in social safety net programs. To glean a better idea of the state of the financial infrastructure in countries with cash-transfer social protection programs, we have analyzed and mapped their physical payment infrastructures - including Commercial Banks, Microfinance Institutions, ATMs and Point of Service terminals - in addition to the human infrastructure and potential for banking via new mediums such as mobiles.