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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.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused schools across the world to close their physical facilities and switch from face-to-face classes to remote learning. This research investigates the consequences of school closures during the pandemic on families and children from marginalized sections of society. The setting of the Galapagos Islands is characterized by poor Internet access and performance, resulting in a detrimental effect on the education of students from vulnerable sectors of society.

Using data from an empirical context, this case study seeks to enhance statistical results from a provincial level household survey with quantitative information from participatory development planning workshops and plans.

Statistical analysis evidences the compound effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the more vulnerable families living in the Galapagos. Both economic wellbeing and children's ability to attend classes online during school closures were linked to respondents' education levels. Participatory development planning workshops highlighted further inequality, and the plans resultant from the process sought to overcome challenges and address needs by contextualizing education for sustainable island living.

This case study emphasizes the impact of school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable sectors of society. In the Galapagos Islands, the response to the compound effect of the pandemic and the other situational challenges has been to contextualize the educational curriculum towards the goal of sustainable living. The lessons learned from this experience will be applicable to other remote island groups.

This paper aims to explore the lived experiences of key stakeholders working with homeless people during the implementation of universal credit during the austerity years.

The literature on austerity reveals welfare reforms’ impact on support services staff. Service providers’ perceptions of the impact of austerity-led policies and welfare reform via nine interviews with people working in homelessness organisations in Brighton and Hove in the UK. Service providers see the situation for their service users has gotten worse and that the policies make it more difficult to extricate themselves from their current situation. Three central themes relating to the impact of austerity-led welfare reforms were, namely, Universal Credit: the imposition of a precarious livelihood on welfare claimants; a double-edged sword: “If people are sanctioned: people can’t pay”; and “Hard to maintain my own mental equilibrium”.

More precisely, this paper captures service providers’ perceptions and experiences of the impact of austerity-led policies on their services and how they believe this, in turn, impacts their clients and their own lives.

The dimension cuts across service provision to vulnerable people and is intertwined with health and well-being outcomes. Austerity is detrimental to the health of service users and their clients. It is known that when it comes to the health and well-being of the most vulnerable, who have suffered most from the impacts of austerity policies. However, in times of open austerity, it falls also on those trying to ease their suffering.

The data suggest that policies were developed and accentuated by austerity, which led to the stripping of welfare support from vulnerable people. This process has impacted the people who rely on welfare and service providers.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) is the worst pandemic in recent memory in terms of its economic and social impacts. Deadly second wave of COVID-19 in India shook the country and reshaped the ways organizations functions and societies behave. Medical infrastructure was unaffordable and unsupportive which created high distress in the Indian society, especially for poor. At this juncture, some pharmaceutical firms made a unique social investment when they reduced price of drugs used to treat COVID-19 patients. This study aims to examine how the market and the society respond to the price reduction announcement during the psychological distress of COVID-19.

Market reactions have been analyzed by conducting an event study on stock market data and visual analytics-based sentiment analysis on Twitter data.

Overall, this study finds positive abnormal returns on the day and around the day of event. Interestingly, this study finds that returns during the time of high distress are significantly higher. Sentiment analysis conveys that net sentiment is favorable to the pharmaceutical firms around the day of event and it sustains more during the time of high distress.

This study is unique in contributing to the business and industrial management literature by highlighting market reactions to social responsibility of business during the time of psychological distress in emerging economies.

Microcharity is a non-profit organization promoting social brotherhood through small donations and volunteer services among diverse members, aiming to address poverty through compassion, cooperation and humanitarianism. The study aims to comprehend the role of microcharity as an alternative to microcredit for poverty alleviation. It sheds light on the modus operandi, prospects and problems associated with microcharity.

The current study used a qualitative research design to investigate a social phenomenon while involving the researchers directly. The study applied participatory action research by involving participants and researchers to comprehend social challenges and evaluate their experiences. The study made considerable use of participant-observer data and field observations.

It has been revealed that microcharity has potential to address social challenges faced by the marginalized and vulnerable section of society.

This study is based on participatory action research, and therefore, it suffers from academic standardization and heavily depends on researchers. On the other hand, it offers practical approach to solve social problems and would bring forth realistic resolution by offering insights of those making use of micro charity for philanthropic activities.

The article is especially helpful for communities that must respond to emergencies and will be beneficial to individuals and institutions working for social welfare.

It will bring forth various facets of micro charity as an alternate for fundraising to rescue sufferers of social exigencies through collective efforts.

The article represents original scholarly research, leveraging the researchers' personal experience to enrich the understanding of microcharity. Its implications are valuable for communities involved in social welfare and can benefit individuals working for charitable institutions, cooperative societies, NGOs and social welfare programmes of government. Additionally, the study's insights can aid researchers in designing new methodologies to explore microcharity and its impact on social welfare initiatives.

This study aims to reflect on how the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the social and economic vulnerability of Indian elderly women, thereby making them prone to varied forms of abuse and denying them of the basic rights of secured existence.

This study was conducted by analyzing primary data from government sources that dealt with the aging Indian population and the common predicaments that elderly women experienced during the pandemic. A qualitative interview was conducted in three old-age homes in India where the experiences of 26 elderly female residents were documented for understanding their experiences during the pandemic. The secondary data collected from different newspaper articles and online resources also enabled in perusing the difficulties that they faced both at home and the caregiving space at the critical juncture of COVID-19.

Nearly 73% of the elderly population in the country has faced an incidence in different forms of abuse and exploitation during the subsequent waves of the pandemic. Disrespect and neglect were the most common type of mistreatment and around 23.1% reported physical assault. The elderly women were victimized further on socioeconomic grounds and their rights of living a secured and dignified life were significantly neglected.

The basic premise of this paper operates on the ground that the family as an institution has shunned taking care of the responsibilities vis-a-vis the elderly and therefore formal institutions have been introduced to aid in the conventional caretaking responsibilities in the Indian societal structure. This situation became all the more grave during the pandemic and therefore needed much intervention. This paper follows the theoretical lens of gender theory and case study method to analyze the data.

The HelpAge India report findings entail that elderly women/widows are doubly marginalized in the Indian society, and the COVID-19 pandemic has escalated the caregiver stress on manifold levels, thus exacerbating the problem. As most of the female senior citizens are economically dependent on their children and relatives, financial exploitation became one of the important premise that deprived them of a healthy living both at home and elderly caregiving institution. Despite the prevalence of certain elderly assistance schemes in the country, the older women’s needs and well-being got heavily impacted and their voice gets hardly recognized in the wider spectrum of sociopolitical events. To extend the requisite help and assistance to this socially vulnerable section, the government on September, 2021, launched a pan-India, toll-free helpline number “Elder Line” to provide relevant information on elderly legal and medical aid and guidance on procuring pension.

According to the secondary findings, a significant percentage of elderly women have been susceptible to physical and emotional abuse and factors such as widowhood, economic dependency, physical infirmity, cognitive impairment along with other stressors have aggravated their exposure to ill-treatment during the pandemic span. Thus, to recognize and mitigate the existing problems affecting the elderly subjects, the government should devise the necessary protocols and adopt essential measures to ensure the welfare of the marginalized section and protect their basic rights of a holistic existence.

Climate variability, accompanied by rapid urbanization and rising population disproportionality, impacts urban poor settlements. This paper aims to analyse the climate resilience for the urban poor in Ahmedabad through the lens of WASH development strategies. To assess the adaptive capacities of urban poor communities, a framework in the form of a vulnerability matrix has been used consisting of four key parameters – tenure, basic services, mobilization and partnership and disaster management capacities. The matrix implicitly recommends area-specific interventions to boost adaptive capacities and improve resilience based on WASH services.

This paper was designed to assess the climate resilience of WASH services in the urban poor settlements of Ahmedabad city. In all, seven slums were selected using a stratified sampling approach considering topography, access to WASH services and urban heat island effect. These slums were then assessed using a theoretical framework having four key parameters – tenure, basic service, mobilization and partnership and disaster management capacities. The data for the analysis was collected from both secondary and primary sources. For the latter, semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, observational field visits and focused group discussions with the communities were done.

A ladder form of assessment matrix was derived from a thorough literature review and various pre-existing theories. This matrix consists of four key parameters – tenure, basic service, mobilization and partnership and disaster management capacities. The slums were evaluated by applying this framework, and direct and indirect relationships were established between the said parameters.

This paper was adapted in the light of various obstacles put forward by the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of the interviews with the bureaucrats and external researchers were conducted online, while the engagement with the slum dwellers was in-person, considering appropriate social and/or physical distancing norms. Implications of the Covid-19 second wave restricted the involvement of researchers with the communities at an ethnographic level.

The ladder form of vulnerability assessment framework has been developed and contextualized using the insights from literature review, field visits and multi-stakeholder consultations. It was helpful in identifying aspects that require suitable interventions for improving and imparting resilience among the urban poor settlements. The learnings from this paper are significant for planners and decision-makers in identifying and prioritizing context-specific future projects for a city.

The foremost objective of this chapter was to present an overview of the cooperative healthcare sector in Argentina by reviewing its brief history, components and the role these healthcare cooperatives play in the society. The second objective was to look at how these cooperatives have helped women and the local communities in which they operate.

This paper has used chiefly secondary data derived from various academic papers and official and government websites which publish cooperative sector-related information. The intention was to construct a concise yet detailed study that would be of help to other researchers in the field of healthcare cooperatives since the data related to Argentina is highly scattered and frequently found not up to date.

The research has found that health cooperatives in Argentina have aided in overcoming problems in the sector such as sectoral fragmentation, negligence and frequently inadequate standards of care management as well as operational and implementation failures that the private and government healthcare players have been accused of being fraught with. Furthermore, the cooperatives have frequently played a complementary or supplementary role rather than a competitive one with the private and government players.

Through the examples presented in this chapter, it is evident that health cooperatives in Argentina are making large impacts in the healthcare domain along with positively impacting women, marginalised and vulnerable sections of the society and the community. It only remains to be seen now how far this sector will grow in the future and how many more lives will be benefitted.

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 qualitative study aims to examine bankers’ perspectives regarding financial inclusion, the challenges it faces and the scope for improvement. This research proposes a financial inclusion model, considering the inputs received by bankers. Financial exclusion of different sections is an issue common to emerging countries.

Data for qualitative research were collected through interviews with bank officials. The information was gathered from 32 bankers from India’s several zones (North, South, West and East). The data were collected from bankers from different public and private sector banks. Thematic analysis was performed up to the point of saturation to study the response received from bankers.

Bank-related issues such as frequent computer problems, network connectivity problems, costs, a shortage of bank branches, fewer transactions through automated teller machines and a shortage of banking staff affect customers’ confidence in formal banking. Banking services are disrupted by a lack of trust in banking correspondents (BCs), as they are not regular employees of banks. Limits on daily transactions discourage high-value customers from using BCs and kiosks. The time spent on administrative formalities impacts customers. Financial inclusion is affected by availability, accessibility, usage and affordability. Digital financial literacy is essential for ease of transaction, but awareness about financial products helps protect customers from cyber scams. The findings of this research would benefit financial institutions globally in developing their businesses and helping to achieve financial inclusion and the United Nation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs).

This research paper undertakes a qualitative analysis of the views collected from bankers. Bankers are crucial stakeholders in the successful implementation of the National Financial Inclusion Policy of the Government of India. Bankers’ perspectives will be important not only for India and its researchers but also in the global context, as the UN’s SDGs focus on leaving no one behind.