In 2025, 60 Decibels partnered with UNICEF USA, Global Partnerships, Accion and VisionFund to explore how financial inclusion impacts children and families. Together, we developed and tested a new child-focused impact assessment designed to help investors and Financial Service Providers better understand how financial services shape children’s wellbeing across different regions and contexts.
The work responds to a growing gap in the financial inclusion and impact investing sectors. While investors increasingly seek to understand long-term outcomes for households, there is still limited data on how financial services affect children specifically. Without child-focused insights, both positive outcomes and potential risks for families can remain invisible within traditional impact measurement frameworks.
As part of the study, we integrated a Child-Lens Investing module into a subset of respondents within the 2025 Microfinance Index. Overall, the Index surveyed more than 24,450 microfinance clients served by 85 Financial Service Providers (FSPs) across 39 countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Among respondents, 23,764 shared caregiving information.
The findings showed caregiver households consistently reported stronger improvements in household resilience, financial management, and child wellbeing compared to households without children. The research also highlighted significant regional and demographic differences, alongside persistent child protection challenges in some markets.
The report demonstrates how listening directly to clients can provide practical insights for investors and FSPs. Caregivers were more likely to use loans for business purposes and reported stronger improvements in savings and emergency preparedness, highlighting opportunities to pair financial products with savings tools or financial education tailored to families.
Building on these findings, Global Partnerships and UNICEF USA also developed two case studies examining social enterprises providing housing finance in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. The case studies explore how housing finance can contribute to safer and healthier living environments for children.
“The findings affirm that well-designed financial products for housing can be a credible pathway to impact for families in poverty and their children,” said Tara Murphy Forde, Chief Capital and Impact Officer at Global Partnerships. “This direct line-of-sight into outcomes enabled is a triple win: It allows investors to be more precise, gives investees actionable insight from which to grow, and thus enables more end-clients to experience changes that are meaningful to their families.”
The research contributes to a growing conversation around child-lens investing and outcomes-focused impact measurement. By incorporating children’s wellbeing into impact measurement and management approaches, investors and FSPs may gain a more nuanced understanding of how financial services shape long-term household resilience, opportunity, and wellbeing.
