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• Open Access Article

  16 Pages Download PDF: Impact of Financial Inclusion Using Community Investment Fund on Poverty Graduation in Rural Sindh of Pakistan

  Impact of Financial Inclusion Using Community Investment Fund on Poverty Graduation in Rural Sindh of Pakistan

  Talat Anwar, Fazal Ali Khan, Lubna Hassan, Amna Ejaz

  2025-06-25 https://doi.org/10.36923/jcmi.v6i1.640

  Financial inclusion offers significant benefits to the unbanked poor population, but barriers such as low literacy, lack of trust in formal financial institutions, and high transaction costs often hinder the use of formal banking services. On the other hand, the Community Investment Fund (CIF) is a revolving grant managed by community-based organisations that provides a low-cost, sustainable solution. The paper examines the impact of financial inclusion through CIF funds on poverty graduation in Rural Sindh, Pakistan. The Poverty Scorecard (PSC) tool is used to assess the changes in the poverty status of CIF loan and grant beneficiaries using before-and-after approaches. A household survey dataset from rural Sindh, covering 4,023 randomly selected households, is analysed. The findings suggest that financial inclusion through community investment funds has positively impacted poor households and helped them graduate from a lower poverty band to a higher one. Compared to conventional sources of finance like Microfinance Banks, the findings suggest that CIF loans appear to be largely cost-effective. We thus recommend increasing CIF coverage for poor segments of the population in Pakistan, as it provides a low-cost, sustainable solution for poverty graduation and increases the cost-effectiveness of social protection programmes in the country.

  pp. 95-110 Abstract views:348 Downloads:120