This evaluation was led by Andrew Stone, lead evaluation officer, and Maria Elena Pinglo, senior evaluation officer, under the direction of Marialisa Motta, manager, and Carmen Nonay, director, and the overall guidance of Alison Evans, Director-General, Evaluation (until 2022), and Oscar Calvo-Gonzalez, Acting Director-General, Evaluation (as of December 2022).

Team members and contributors included the following (alphabetically): Atinuke Ann Adigun, consultant; Amitava Banerjee, consultant; Elena Bardasi, senior economist; Leonardo Bravo, senior evaluation officer; Joy Butscher, evaluation officer; Mariana Calderon Cerbon, consultant; Wasiq Ismail, consultant; Riad Al Khouri, consultant; Sylvie Kabaziga Bishweka, consultant, Yulia Krylova, consultant; Anna Mortara, consultant; Ali Muez, consultant; Lilian Akunna Onyegbulam, methods fellow; Carlos Prada, consultant; Jon Principe, consultant; Sanjivi Rajasingham, consultant; Nadia Ramirez, consultant; Andrea Mariana Rojas Hosse, consultant; Heinz Rudolph, senior evaluation officer; Nikki Tan Sanittawan, extended-term consultant; Tao Tao, consultant; Rasec Niembro Urista, consultant; and Orlando Vaca Rodriguez, consultant. Aarre Laakso, senior consultant, was the developmental editor. Romayne Pereira, program assistant; Eli Crespo, temporary; and Emelda Cudilla, temporary, provided invaluable administrative support.

Valuable methodological guidance was received from the Independent Evaluation Group methods team led by Estelle Raimondo, senior evaluation officer, and Jozef Vaessen, methods adviser, with support on sampling from Harsh Anuj, data scientist, and on econometrics from Ana Paula Pellegrino, methods consultant. The peer reviewers were Elizabeth Rhyne, vice-chair of the Grameen Foundation and former managing director of the Center for Financial Inclusion; Renée Chao-Béroff, managing director of Pamiga and Pamiga Finance SA and chief executive officer of Wi-Agri; David Symington, policy adviser at the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development; Mohini Malhotra, adjunct professor at Georgetown University and senior adviser of IMAGO Global Grassroots; and Larry Reed, senior fellow for economic inclusion at RESULTS (Approach Paper only).

The team extends its thanks to the dozens of staff of the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor who contributed their insights to this work, as well as country teams who provided generous support to the country case studies. Special thanks are extended to Martin Holtmann, country manager, and Mahesh Uttamchandani, practice manager. Although this work depended heavily on the information and support these staff provided, they bear no responsibility for its content.