The price of digital financial services (DFS) can be an obstacle to its adoption and regular use, particularly in low-and-middle income countries (LMIC). In Tanzania Innovations for Poverty Actions (IPA) is developing a transaction cost index (TCI) to measure the monetary and non-monetary costs of conducting DFS transactions. IPA researchers will test four methods to determine the most cost-effective way to accurately calculate real transaction costs. Results will include a report with the costs of different mobile money transactions and a cost-effectiveness analysis of the different methodologies tested. IPA researchers hope to then scale this index to other contexts.

Women across the world face systemic challenges to their health and safety, including intimate partner violence, sexual violence, forced marriage, and disempowerment within the household. One potential way to counter these issues is through media messaging that is designed to change people’s attitudes and behavior. Building on an earlier study in Uganda, researchers are working with Innovations for Poverty Action to measure the impact of radio programming on gender-related attitudes and behaviors.