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The paper aims to examine the state of electronic service delivery in Bangladesh. It reviews the structure and operation of the “e-service” centers at the district, sub-district (upazila), and union levels by taking an inventory and assessing their contributions.

The paper is based on a review of the functions and operations of the service delivery agencies with reference to the claims made by the government. It is based on secondary materials obtained from academic studies, government documents, relevant websites, and media reports.

Electronic delivery of public services in Bangladesh has not been effective as planned. There are issues regarding channels of communication, the competence of public officials, human and financial resources, and political will to support the agencies delivering public services.

The paper examines the arrangements, practices, and problems of delivery of public services in Bangladesh through e-service centers at the local levels to determine the progress and potentials of employing digital technology for addressing problems. It proposes the strategy for public service delivery by using digital technology in the country.

The main purpose of this study is to test for the interaction effect of digital literacy in the relationship between financial technologies (FinTechs) of biometrics and mobile money and digital financial inclusion among the unbanked poor women, youth and persons with disabilities (PWDs) in rural Uganda.

Covariance-based structural equation modeling was used to construct the interaction effect using data collected from the unbanked poor women, youth and PWDs located in the four regions in Uganda as prescribed by Hair et al. (2022).

The findings from this study are threefold: first; the results revealed a positive interaction effect of digital literacy between FinTechs of biometrics and mobile money and digital financial inclusion. Second; the results also confirmed that biometrics identification positively promotes digital financial inclusion. Lastly; the results showed that mobile money positively promotes digital financial inclusion. A combination of FinTechs of biometrics and mobile money together with digital literacy explain 29% variation in digital financial inclusion among the unbanked poor women, youth and PWDs in rural Uganda.

The data for this study were collected mainly from the unbanked poor women, youth and PWDs. Further studies may look at data from other sections of the vulnerable population in under developed financial markets. Additionally, the data for this study were collected only from Uganda as a developing country. Thus, more data may be obtained from other developing countries to draw conclusive and generalized empirical evidence. Besides, the current study used cross sectional design to collect the data. Therefore, future studies may adopt longitudinal research design to investigate the impact of FinTechs on digital financial inclusion in the presence of digital literacy across different time range.

The governments in developing countries like Uganda should support women, youth, PWDs and other equally vulnerable groups, especially in the rural communities to understand and use FinTechs. This can be achieved through digital literacy that can help them to embrace digital financial services and competently navigate and perform digital transactions over digital platforms like mobile money without making errors. Besides, governments in developing countries like Uganda can use this finding to advocate for the design of appropriate digital infrastructures to reach remote areas and ensure “last mile connectivity for digital financial services' users.” The use of off-line solutions can complement the absence or loss of on-line network connectivity for biometrics and mobile money to close the huge digital divide gap in rural areas. This can scale-up access to and use of financial services by the unbanked rural population.

This paper sheds more light on the importance of digital literacy in the ever complex and dynamic global FinTech ecosystem in the presence of rampant cyber risks. To the best of the authors' knowledge, limited studies currently exist that integrate digital literacy as a moderator in the relationship between FinTechs and digital financial inclusion, especially among vulnerable groups in under-developed digital financial markets in developing countries. This is the novelty of the paper with data obtained from the unbanked poor women, youth and PWDs in rural Uganda.

This chapter embarks on a cross-Asian comparison to glean valuable insights from various regions and religious contexts. By examining family planning practices and challenges in different parts of Asia, valuable lessons are uncovered that can inform policies, programs, and initiatives aimed at achieving family planning-related sustainable development goals (SDGs). The complexities and nuances of family planning across diverse cultural, social, and religious landscapes are delved into, shedding light on both common threads and unique challenges faced by marginalized communities. Through this comparative analysis, the aim is to contribute to a holistic understanding of family planning in Asia and provide actionable recommendations to enhance access, equity, and outcomes in pursuit of family planning-related SDGs.

This chapter provides a comprehensive exploration of the pivotal role of family planning in advancing sustainable development goals (SDGs). It elucidates the intrinsic connection between family planning and sustainable development, scrutinizes the harmonization of family planning initiatives with SDG targets and indicators, gleans insights from global approaches, and identifies formidable challenges, with a particular focus on marginalized communities. This chapter culminates with a set of substantial recommendations aimed at surmounting these challenges and propelling SDG attainment through the prism of family planning.

This study aims to deepen the understanding of the challenges and implications entailed by deploying mobile clinics in conflict zones to reach populations affected by violence and cut off from health-care services.

This research combines an integrated literature review and an instrumental case study. The literature review comprises two targeted reviews to provide insights: one on conflict zones and one on mobile clinics. The case study describes the process and challenges faced throughout a mobile clinic deployment during and after the Iraq War. The data was gathered using mixed methods over a two-year period (2017–2018).

Armed conflicts directly impact the populations’ health and access to health care. Mobile clinic deployments are often used and recommended to provide health-care access to vulnerable populations cut off from health-care services. However, there is a dearth of peer-reviewed literature documenting decision support tools for mobile clinic deployments.

This study highlights the gaps in the literature and provides direction for future research to support the development of valuable insights and decision support tools for practitioners.

The expansion of connectivity on a national scale in Brazil, whether through mobile Internet or fixed broadband, is described as one of the factors that can lead to social and economic benefits for large parts of the population who do not have a network connection. It can also help to reduce poverty by improving the infrastructure of services and increasing Internet use for education purposes. It also provides people with the ability to communicate with online administrative services – local, regional, and national. In Brazil, the main difficulty facing an effective universalization of telecommunications has been limitations in accessing services. This chapter demonstrates the relevance of small Internet providers for the expansion of fixed broadband in less commercially attractive regions (in terms of subscribers, income, and distance) who have been growing over recent years and are now present in 70% of Brazilian municipalities and whose role is paramount to reducing the digital divide.

This paper aims to conduct a systematic literature review on the fintech services and financial inclusion of the developing nations that particularly focuses on lower middle-income group nations (LMIGN) and upper middle-income group nations (UMIGN) to highlight the research areas that have not received attention and present opportunities for future research.

This paper adopts a systematic approach to examine 65 research articles published from 2016 to 2021, adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines.

The study identifies research gaps in two key themes: backward and outward linkages. In backward linkages, the literature on UMIGN should pay attention to the behavioural patterns associated with lending, investment and market provision-related fintech services. Further research is needed to understand the relationship between fintech services on the usage and quality dimension of financial inclusion in both LMIGN and UMIGN. For outward linkages, future research work should explore the role of fintech and financial inclusion in the development of LMIGN. This study provides valuable insights and guides future research directions by comprehensively mapping the existing studies.

This study does not use quantitative tools, such as meta and bibliometric analysis, to validate the findings.

This research paper offers new perspectives that introduce a novel framework for analysing literature on fintech, financial inclusion and its impact on the overall development of UMIGN and LMIGN.

This chapter discusses various aspects of family planning initiatives on a global scale, with a specific focus on their influence in Asian contexts, including Bangladesh. This chapter examines the diverse range of family planning programs and policies implemented worldwide, in Asia and Bangladesh considering cultural factors that significantly shape family planning decisions. By highlighting the unique approaches and challenges faced in different regions, it provides valuable insights into the evolving landscape of family planning efforts and their impact on population dynamics.

Currently, consumers of financial products and services have become more vulnerable to predatory financial institutions, especially in the aftermath of Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, financial consumers like the persons with disabilities (PWDs) should be equipped with knowledge and skills to help them to evaluate complex financial products on offer in financial markets, especially in developing countries to avoid being victims of fraudulent lending. The purpose of this study is to establish whether customized financial literacy mediates the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

SmartPLS 4.0 was used to construct the measurement and structural equation models to test whether customized financial literacy significantly mediates the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

The results revealed a partial mediating effect of customized financial literacy in the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic. Conducting customized financial literacy increases financial consumer protection by 12 percentage points to promote financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

This study focused only on customized financial literacy and financial consumer protection to promote universal financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs post Covid-19 pandemic. Future studies may use data collected from other vulnerable groups amongst the unbanked population in developing countries, Uganda inclusive. In addition, this study also collected only quantitative data from the selected population. Further studies can be conducted using key informant interviews and focused group discussion to get the perceptions of the PWDs on being protected from exploitation by unscrupulous financial institutions.

The findings from this study can help policymakers in developing countries like Uganda to revise the existing consumer protection law to include strong clauses on protection of people with special needs like the PWDs. The law must ensure that they are not exploited by financial institutions because of their conditions. The law ought to make sure that the PWDs are educated about their rights in the financial market place and all information on financial products offered by financial institutions should be simplified and interpreted to them before they make consumption decisions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is amongst the first few studies to provide a meticulous and unique discourse on the ever increasing role of financial literacy combined with consumer protection to reduce consumption risks within the financial markets, especially in developing countries in the aftermath of global pandemic shocks. This study uses the social learning theory, theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behaviour to elucidate how customized financial literacy can enhance consumer protection to increase financial inclusion of groups with special needs like the PWDs who have become more susceptible to exploitation by unscrupulous financial institutions in under-developed financial markets, especially in post Covid-19 pandemic.

Recently emerged Packaging-as-a-Service (PaaS) systems adopt aspects of access-based services and triadic frameworks, which have typically been treated as conceptually separate. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implications of blending the two in what we call “access-based triadic systems,” by empirically evaluating intentions to adopt PaaS systems for takeaway food among restaurants and consumers.

We derived relevant attributes of PaaS systems from a qualitative pre-study with restaurants and consumers. Next, we conducted two factorial survey experiments with restaurants (N = 176) and consumers (N = 245) in Germany to quantitatively test the effects of those system attributes on their adoption intentions.

This paper highlights that the role of access-based triadic system providers as both the owners of shared assets and the operators of a triadic system is associated with a novel set of challenges and opportunities: System providers need to attract a critical mass of business and end customers while balancing asset protection and system complexity. At the same time, asset ownership introduces opportunities for improved quality control and differentiation from competition.

Conceptually, this paper extends research on access-based services and triadic frameworks by describing an unexplored hybrid form of non-ownership consumption we call “access-based triadic systems.” Empirically, this paper addresses the need to account for the demands of two distinct target groups in triadic systems and demonstrates how factorial survey experiments can be leveraged in this field.