Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series on the 2015 Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) Report and Scorecard, which were launched at a Brookings public event in August. Previous posts have highlighted five key findings from the 2015 FDIP Report, explored financial inclusion developments in India, and examined the rankings for selected FDIP countries in Southeast and Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

The 2015 Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) Report and Scorecard were launched in August of this year and generally reflect data current through May 2015. Since the end of the data collection period for the report, countries have continued to push forward to greater financial inclusion, and international organizations have continued to assert the importance of financial inclusion as a mechanism for promoting individual well-being and macroeconomic development. Financial inclusion is a key component of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, signaling international commitment to advancing access to and use of quality financial products among the underserved.

We discussed one recent groundbreaking financial inclusion development in a previous post. To learn more about the approval of payments banks in India, read “Inclusion in India: Unpacking the 2015 FDIP Report and Scorecard.”

Below are four other key developments among our 21-country sample since the end of the data collection period for the 2015 FDIP Report and Scorecard. The list is in no way intended to be exhaustive, but rather to provide a snapshot illustrating how rapidly the financial inclusion landscape is evolving globally.   

1) The Philippines launched a national financial inclusion strategy.

In July 2015, the Philippines launched a national financial inclusion strategy (NFIS) and committed to drafting an Action Plan on Financial Inclusion. The Philippines’ NFIS identifies four areas central to promoting financial inclusion: “policy and regulation, financial education and consumer protection, advocacy programs, and data and measurement.”

 As discussed in the 2015 FDIP Report, national financial inclusion strategies often serve as a platform for identifying key priorities, clarifying the roles of key stakeholders, and setting measurable targets. These strategies can foster accountability and incentivize implementation of stated initiatives. While correlation does not necessarily equal causation, it is nonetheless interesting to note that, according to the World Bank, “[o]n average, there is a 10% increase in the percentage of adults with an account at a formal financial institution for countries  that launched an NFIS after 2007, whereas the increase is only 5% for those countries that have not launched an NFIS.”

2) Peru adopted a national financial inclusion strategy.

With support from the World Bank, Peru’s Multisectoral Financial Inclusion Commission established an NFIS that was adopted in July 2015 through a Supreme Decree issued by President Ollanta Humala Tasso. The strategy contains a goal to increase financial inclusion to 50 percent of adults by 2018. This is quite an ambitious target: As of 2014, the World Bank Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) database found that only 29 percent of adults in Peru had an account with a formal financial services provider. The NFIS also commits the country to facilitating access to a transaction account among at least 75 percent of adults by 2021.

Peru’s NFIS emphasizes the promotion of electronic payment systems, including electronic money, as well as improvements pertaining to consumer protection and education. Advancing access to both digital and traditional financial services should boost Peru’s adoption levels over time. As noted in the 2015 FDIP Report, while Peru’s national-level commitment to financial inclusion and regulatory environment for financial services are strong, adoption levels remain low (Peru ranked 15^th on the adoption dimension of the 2015 Scorecard, the lowest ranking among the Latin American countries in our sample).

3) Colombia updated its quantifiable targets and released a financial inclusion survey.

The 2015 Maya Declaration Progress Report, published in late August 2015, highlights a number of quantifiable financial inclusion targets set by the Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito Público de Colombia (Colombia’s primary Maya Declaration signatory) relating to the percentage of adults with financial products and savings accounts. For example, the target for the percentage of adults with a financial product is now 76 percent by 2016, up from a target of 73.7 percent by 2015. The goal for the percentage of adults with an active savings account in 2016 is now 56.6 percent, up from a target of 54.2 percent by 2015. To learn more about concrete financial inclusion targets among other FDIP countries, read the 2015 Maya Declaration Progress Report.

In July, Banca de las Oportunidades, a key financial inclusion stakeholder in Colombia, presented the results of the country’s first demand-side survey specifically related to financial inclusion. As noted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, previous national-level surveys conducted by entities such as the Superintendencia Financiera and Asobancaria have identified supply- and demand-side indicators pertaining to various financial services. As discussed in the 2015 FDIP Report, national-level surveys that focus on access to and usage of financial services can help identify areas of greatest need and enable countries to better leverage their resources to promote adoption of quality financial services among marginalized populations.

4) Nigeria’s “super agent” network enables greater access to digital financial services.

In September 2015, telecommunications company Globacom launched a “super agent” network, Glo Xchange, which can access the mobile money services of any partner mobile money operator. The network has been launched in partnership with four banks. Globacom was given approval in 2014 to develop this network; since then, the company has been recruiting and training its agents. About 1,000 agents will initially be part of this system, with a goal to recruit 10,000 agents by September 2016. Expanding access points to financial services by building agent networks is hoped to boost adoption of digital financial services.

Despite having multiple mobile money operators (19 as of October 2015, according to the GSMA’s Mobile Money Deployment Tracker), Nigeria’s mobile money adoption levels have not reached the degree of success of some other countries in Africa: The Global Findex noted that less than 3 percent of adults in Nigeria had mobile money accounts in 2014, compared with over 30 percent in Tanzania and about 60 percent in Kenya. Nigeria’s primarily bank-led approach to financial services, which excludes mobile network operators from being licensed as mobile money operators, is one factor that may have constrained adoption of mobile money services to date. You can read more about Nigeria’s regulatory environment and financial services landscape in the 2015 FDIP Report.

We welcome your feedback regarding recent financial inclusion developments. Please send any links, questions, or comments to FDIPComments@brookings.edu.

Note: FBI Director James Comey recommended this week that no criminal charges be pressed against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. And Attorney General Loretta Lynch has formally closed the Department of Justice’s investigation. But congressional Republicans—who called Comey to testify before the House Oversight committee yesterday—insist that Clinton’s conduct jeopardized U.S. national security.

As I wrote back in February, when it was revealed that 22 of the emails in question were deemed too classified to be made public: “Hillary's emails (even if they were released) could not do anything more than confirm or repudiate what has already been widely investigated.” I called for distinguishing mistakes from crimes and argued that Clinton’s use of a private email server never put America’s security at risk. 

Due to the renewed relevance of that post, it is re-posted below.

What to make of the recent report that 22 emails from Hillary Clinton's private server, written while she was secretary of state during the first Obama term, contain such highly classified material that they cannot be released to the public? Republicans have seized on the latest news to argue that Hillary Clinton was careless or even reckless in her treatment of national secrets. They’ve thereby challenged her credentials and judgment as she pursues the presidency.

Clinton has acknowledged some mistakes in the use of a personal email account and server when she led the State Department, but her campaign has dismissed the latest news as evidence of a U.S. government classification system run amok that often slaps a top secret label on even the most innocuous of information. 

With the emails at issue now classified, it’s hard to understand the basis for this dispute very well. Who are we to believe? Most people are probably falling back on their preconceived views about Hillary, but it would be nice to find a more objective way to assess the latest news—especially as primary voting season begins.

A hypothetical

I can't be sure what's going on here either. But there have been reports that some of the sensitive emails might have involved the use of drones in certain parts of the world where the U.S. government has chosen not to announce or publicize its use of that technology. 

Let's explore that, on the hunch that it may be what's behind the latest brouhaha. For years, there has been a great deal of media coverage of how unmanned aerial systems, including armed ones, have been used in the broader war on terror. If there ever were any real secrets here, they have been very badly kept. Certainly, Hillary's emails (even if they were released) could not do anything more than confirm or repudiate what has already been widely investigated, in this country and around the world. It seems quite unlikely that she was so careless as to describe any technical aspects of those drones or to otherwise risk the leakage of information that was truly still secret (in the sense that word is normally used in the English language, rather than the way the U.S. government employs it when making classification determinations).

Hillary's emails (even if they were released) could not do anything more than confirm or repudiate what has already been widely investigated.

Imagine a situation in which the United States government wished to use force as part of a broader military operation that Congress had already approved in broad contours, going back to the 2001 Authorization on the Use of Military Force that followed the 9/11 attack. But the employment of force in a particular place was seen as politically sensitive—less so in the United States, where Congress had already authorized the conflict, but in a foreign country, where the government at issue was not willing or able to publicly support America's use of military force on its territory. This could be a situation where the foreign government in question actually had few qualms about the U.S. action, but did still not wish to be associated with them—in fact, it may have wanted the license to complain about them publicly, both to its own public and other nations. It wanted, in other words, to have its cake and eat it too.

In this situation, whether the U.S. decision to accept such constraints on its action was wise or not, it would not be allowable for an American public official to discuss the policy. The actual use of armed force would occur through covert elements of the U.S. government, and under domestic laws governing such activities. 

We would have twisted ourselves into knots to avoid displeasing a foreign government that otherwise might make a huge stink about our using American military power on its territory—and might even retaliate against us in some way if the information were publicly confirmed. Everyone in that country, the United States, and other places would have a strong suspicion of what we were actually doing, but there would be no official confirmation. It's not exactly plausible deniability. Call it implausible deniability, in fact.

In such a situation, as a top official in the United States, Hillary Clinton would perhaps have been an architect of the policy (or have inherited it from a previous presidency). Either way, she would be expected to abide by it, and treat the information as highly sensitive. If she did not do so, that was indeed a mistake on her part.

Distinguishing mistakes from crimes

But if this thought experiment bears any resemblance to what actually is behind those 22 emails, one more thing should also be clear—no major national secret was at risk of getting out because of Secretary Clinton's misjudgment. Her email practice was potentially a mistake, but no high crime, and America's security was never put at risk.

Of course, it's still up to voters to decide how to weigh this potential issue in the panoply of so many others that influence their choices for president. Even if I’m right in my guess about what's going on here, I don’t claim to be in a position to answer that question for anyone.

When she gives her speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton will of course be at a crucial point in her campaign for the presidency. Her fellow Democrats—including her running mate Senator Tim Kaine, as well as Michael Bloomberg—have roundly criticized her Republican opponent Donald Trump this week. Vice President Biden and President Obama usefully offered a counterpoint to the dark worldview we saw from Mr. Trump last week in Cleveland. And former President Bill Clinton, as well as first lady Michelle Obama, told us about Clinton’s longstanding dedication to women and children, the less fortunate, and the nation as a whole. As a parent of a child on the autism spectrum, I have seen and deeply appreciated this side of Clinton myself.

Now, it is up to Clinton to sketch out a positive vision for her own presidency. In so doing, she must strike a balanced tone—acknowledging and tapping the energy (and at times anger) of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and their wing of the Democratic Party—while also reaching out to independents and moderate Republicans to whom she should appeal (given her past and her politics, and most of all, her opponent), but who at present tend not to think favorably of her.

Against this complex backdrop, I would offer only a few suggestions for her upcoming speech:

• On the state of the world, we need a nuanced view. Yes, there are big problems. Yes, ISIS is a greater threat than President Obama has sometimes acknowledged. On balance, however, things are troubled but not bad. Democracy has taken a hit in recent years, and the world’s economy has struggled in many ways for a decade, and Russia and China have caused considerable problems of late. But taking a larger perspective, the international order still has many strong points. Our alliances are strong. Despite recent setbacks, a higher percentage of people around the world live in democratic countries and above the poverty line this century than ever before. Child mortality globally is way down. U.S.-India relations are better than ever, as are America’s ties to other key rising powers like Indonesia. The U.S. military is indeed very strong (as retired General David Petraeus and I write in a forthcoming Foreign Affairs article), even if there is much to do to make it even better.


• We do need to do better in fighting ISIS. Ideas on how to attack it in Syria and Libya, among other places, will be key, even if details will necessarily need to await 2017. And while I think President Obama has done better in dealing with Russia and China than commonly understood, Obama has not explained his strategies for handling these powers very well to the United States. Clinton can help.


• The fading middle-class economic dream in the United States remains the central issue of this campaign. It explains the rise of Sanders and Trump better than any other single factor or phenomenon. Clinton’s views on economics are good but they come across as a bit piecemeal, borrowing from Sanders on a few key points like the minimum wage and trade but somewhat lacking her own key stamp. Above all other issues, I hope she concentrates on this tonight.


• We have not heard much about Benghazi or about Clinton’s email problems this week. To be sure, many Republicans have inflated these issues beyond all reason. But Clinton should still apologize for her mistakes to the country, without overdoing it. As best I can tell, she put no true national secrets or American personnel at risk in her emails, and while Benghazi was a tragedy that might have been preventable, no one can be perfect in times like these. We don’t typically excoriate our military commanders for mistakes that tragically may cost American lives in a given tactical operation, recognizing that such setbacks happen in war. That is not to excuse the lack of proper attention to Libya and Benghazi by the U.S. government back in 2011 and 2012, only to put it in perspective.


• It would be good to hear some nice words about Republicans too, in an effort to reach across the aisle and defuse some of the anger in American politics today. I don’t mean just to compliment Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, but also to note the importance of people like Pete Domenici and Warren Rudman in fiscal policy and deficit reduction (and more recently, John Boehner and Paul Ryan); George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole in the Americans with Disabilities Act; the Republican Congress of the 1990s in welfare reform; George H.W. Bush again as well as people like Christie Todd Whitman in environmental policy; George W. Bush on PEPFAR/AIDS and also on stressing inclusivity while avoiding anti-Muslim rhetoric after the 9/11 attacks; and good GOP governors or former governors like Mitch Daniels, John Kasich, and Jeb Bush in fostering economic growth as well as education reform across much of the country. To Democrats angry with the current Republican presidential ticket, as well as much of the current congressional leadership, this may seem like bending over backwards to appease the opposition. But in fact, the above folks are not the opposition that Clinton needs to defeat now; they are responsible, constructive, patriotic members of the other main political party in the United States. They are not the enemy, and by reaching out to them, Clinton can improve her odds of beating the person who is now very much the adversary—not only of the Democratic ticket, but of much of this country’s finest bipartisan traditions and accomplishments.

I’ll be rooting for all the above (and also hoping to get to bed before midnight). Please bring it on, Hillary!

At an event this past week, Hillary Clinton announced that, if elected, she planned to put Bill Clinton in charge of creating jobs. If he becomes the “First Gentlemen” -- or as she prefers to call him, the “First Dude,” – he just might have some success in this role. The country’s very strong record of job creation during the first Clinton administration is a hopeful sign. (Full disclosure: I served in his Administration.)

But assuming he's given the role of jobs czar, what would Bill Clinton do? The uncomfortable fact is that no one knows how to create enough jobs. Although about 50 percent of the public, according to Pew, worries that there are not enough jobs available, and virtually every presidential candidate is promising to produce more, economists are not sure how to achieve this goal.

The debate centers around why we think people are jobless. Unless we can agree on the diagnosis, we will not be able to fashion an appropriate policy response.

Some economists think that an unemployment rate hovering around 5 percent constitutes “full employment.” Those still looking for jobs, in this view, are either simply transitioning voluntarily from one job to another or they are “structurally unemployed.” The latter term refers to a mismatch, either between a worker’s skills and the skills that employers are seeking, or between where the workers live and where the jobs are geographically. (The decline in housing values or tighter zoning restrictions, for example, may have made it more difficult for people to move to states or cities where jobs are more available.)

Another view is that despite the recovery from the Great Recession, there is still a residue of “cyclical” unemployment. If the Federal Reserve or Congress were to boost demand by keeping interest rates low, reducing taxes, or increasing spending on, say, infrastructure, this would create more jobs – or so goes the argument. But the Fed can’t reduce interest rates significantly because they are already near rock-bottom levels and tax and spending policies are hamstrung by political disagreements.

In my view, the U.S. currently suffers from both structural and cyclical unemployment. The reason I believe there is still some room to stimulate the economy is because we have not yet seen a significant increase in labor costs and inflation. Political problems aside, we should be adding more fuel to the economy in the form of lower taxes or higher public spending.

High levels of structural unemployment are also a problem. The share of working-age men who are employed has been dropping for decades at least in part because of outsourcing and automation. The share of the unemployed who have been out of work for more than six months is also relatively high for an economy at this stage of the business cycle. One possibility is that the recession caused many workers to drop out of the labor force and that after a long period of joblessness, they have seen their skills atrophy and employers stigmatize them as unemployable.

The depressing fact is that none of these problems is easy to solve. Manufacturing jobs that employ a lot of people are not coming back. Retraining the work force for a high-tech economy will take a long time. Political disagreements won’t disappear unless there is a landslide election that sweeps one party into control of all three branches of government.

So what can Bill Clinton or anyone else do? We may need to debate some more radical solutions such as subsidized jobs or a basic income for the structurally unemployed or a shorter work week to spread the available work around. These may not be politically feasible for some time to come, but former President Clinton is the right person to engage communities and employers in some targeted job creation projects now and to involve the country in a serious debate about what to do about jobs over the longer haul.

Editor's note: This piece originally appeared in Inside Sources.