The impacts of financial inclusion interventions are small and variable. Although some services have some positive effects for some people, overall financial inclusion may be no better than comparable alternatives, such as graduation or livelihoods interventions.1.2What is the aim of this review?This systematic review of reviews systematically collects and appraises all of the existing meta‐studies—that is systematic reviews and meta‐analyses—of the impact of financial inclusion. The authors first analyse the strength of the methods used in those meta‐studies, then synthesize the findings from those that are of a sufficient quality, and finally, report the implications for policy, programming, practice and further research arising from the evidence. Eleven studies are included in the analysis.Financial inclusion programmes seek to increase access to financial services such as credit, savings, insurance and money transfers and so allow poor and low‐income households in low‐ and middle‐income countries to enhance their welfare, grasp opportunities, mitigate shocks, and ultimately escape poverty. This systematic review of reviews assesses the evidence on economic, social, behavioural and gender‐related outcomes from financial inclusion.1.31.3.1This review includes studies that synthesise the findings of other studies (meta‐studies) regarding the impacts of a range of financial inclusion interventions on economic, social, gender and behavioural outcomes. A total of 32 such meta‐studies were identified, of which 11 were of sufficient methodological quality to be included in the final analysis. The review examined meta‐studies from 2010 onwards that spanned the globe in terms of geographical coverage.Impacts are more likely to be positive than negative, but the effects vary, are often mixed, and appear not to be transformative in scope or scale, as they largely occur in the early stages of the causal chain of effects. Overall, the effects of financial services on core economic poverty indicators such as incomes, assets or spending, and on health status and other social outcomes, are small and inconsistent. Moreover, there is no evidence for meaningful behaviour‐change outcomes leading to further positive effects.The effects of financial services on women's empowerment appear to be generally positive, but they depend upon programme features which are often only peripheral or unrelated to the financial service itself (such as education about rights), cultural and geographical context, and what aspects of empowerment are considered.Accessing savings opportunities appears to have small but much more consistently positive effects for poor people, and bears fewer downside risks for clients than credit. A large number of the meta‐studies included in the final analysis voiced concerns about the low quality of the primary evidence base that formed the basis of their syntheses. This raises concerns about the reliability of the overall findings of meta‐studies.1.4This systematic review of reviews draws on the largest‐ever evidence base on financial inclusion impacts. The weak effects found warn against unrealistic hype for financial inclusion, as previously happened for microcredit. There are substantial evidence gaps, notably studies of sufficient duration to measure higher‐level impacts which take time to materialise, and for specific outcomes such as debt levels or indebtedness patterns and the link to macroeconomic development.This study is the first review of reviews published by the Campbell Collaboration. Some important limitations were encountered working at this level of systematisation. It is recommended that authors of primary studies and meta‐studies engage more critically with study quality and ensure better, more detailed reporting of their concepts, data and methods. More methods guidance and clearer reporting standards for the social science and international development context would be helpful.1.5The review authors searched for studies in November 2017, updating elements of the searches in January 2018. This Campbell Systematic Review was published in January 2019.22.1Financial inclusion is presently one of the most widely recognised areas of activity in international development. Financial inclusion initiatives have built upon donors’ experience with microfinance, but have displaced and superseded microfinance interventions in recent years with a more encompassing agenda of financial services for poverty alleviation and development. With financial inclusion, policymakers and donors hope that access to financial services  provided by a variety of financial service providers, of which microfinance institutions (MFIs) are a subset, will allow poor and low‐income households in low‐ and middle‐income countries to enhance their welfare, grasp opportunities, mitigate shocks, and ultimately escape poverty. Another hope is that increased access to financial services will advance macroeconomic development, which is also expected to benefit poor/low‐income households. More recently, some donors have suggested behavioural changes (such as household spending decisions) to be desired outcomes of access to financial services, as well. Unlike most previous systematic reviews, which focused on microfinance interventions (or subsets thereof), we explicitly adopt a broader scope to review any available systematic review and or meta‐analysis evidence on financial inclusion as a whole field.Systematic reviews and meta‐analyses (in short: meta‐studies) have sought to clarify the impacts from financial inclusion on poor people in low‐ and middle‐income countries, based on an array of different underlying studies which include quantitative and qualitative work based on long‐term and short‐term data. The bulk of these meta‐studies have focused on microfinance, and many specifically on microcredit. The very different quality and approaches of these meta‐studies, and of the studies underlying them, however, pose a major challenge for policymakers, programme managers and practitioners in assessing the benefits and drawbacks of finance‐based approaches to poverty alleviation. Increasingly there is confusion about the impacts, and a risk of “cherry picking” among different findings. Further, many meta‐studies are not taking into account what is missing from their primary studies, which would affect an understanding of the evidence, for example when not analysing or reporting gendered impacts. More recently, primary studies have also sought to understand the impacts of financial inclusion initiatives more broadly, but the systematic review evidence has not yet progressed as far as for microfinance.2.2The objective of this systematic review of reviews is to systematically collect and appraise the existing meta‐studies of financial inclusion impacts, analyse the strength of the methods used, synthesise the findings from those meta‐studies, and report implications for policy, programming, practice and further research.Systematic reviews of reviews are undertaken in other sectors for which evidence is widely available, but they are nonexistent in international development. This systematic review of reviews thus provides the opportunity to develop and pilot an evidence synthesis approach in a sector where there is a large body of evidence of variable quality, but a systematic appraisal and synthesis of the body of systematic reviews and meta‐analyses is lacking.○What is known from existing meta‐studies about the  poverty impacts of different types of inclusive financial services , regardless of provider, on poor and low‐income people in low‐ and middle‐income countries? This includes poverty impacts through macroeconomic development, to the extent that it results from financial inclusion.○What is known from existing meta‐studies about the gendered impacts of different types of financial inclusion activity —in other words, what does the evidence tell us about how gendered participation affects interventions’ effects, and about whether or not (and in what ways) financial services empower women in low‐ and middle‐income countries?○What is known from existing meta‐studies about the reasons for financial services uptake, or other participant views about the financial services on offer?Impacts○Including using a gender and equity lens, what methods and standards have meta‐studies used to draw conclusions from the studies they reviewed?○What difference does the choice of methods and standards make to the results?○How could the methods and standards be improved in order to draw more robust and reliable conclusions via meta‐studies?MethodologyThis study critically engages with approaches to systematic reviews of reviews with a view to further developing systematic review of review methods, and it aims to answer the following questions to gain better clarity about financial inclusion impacts:2.3We adopt a multipronged search strategy that explored seven bibliographic databases to identify published literature, plus a wide range of institutional websites for published and unpublished literature, and back‐referencing from recent systematic reviews to ensure additional sources were identified. In addition, a snowballing approach was adopted and an advisory board plus leading authors working on financial inclusion topics were consulted to ensure that no key studies were missed. We also ran citation searches on included systematic reviews and meta‐analyses in Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science to identify more recent systematic reviews or meta‐analyses not retrieved in the database searches. No restrictions were placed on the language of papers but all searches were limited to 2010 onwards.2.4We adopted the following selection criteria to establish study inclusion or exclusion:2.4.1We include studies that self‐identify as systematic reviews and or meta‐analyses of the impacts of financial inclusion . These, in turn, focused on synthesising quantitative, qualitative and or mixed methods evidence.2.4.2Our population is the population of participants in inclusive finance activities in low‐ and middle‐income countries.2.4.3We include meta‐studies that address at least one or more types of intervention for financial inclusion. The key is that the intervention must be fundamentally a financial service directed at poor and low‐income people. In most cases, we find the interventions are one or more subcategories of microfinance: credit, savings, insurance, leasing, and/or money transfers. However, our search strategy explicitly targets the broader range of inclusive finance activities, including mobile monies, mobile payments systems, index insurance, or savings promotion.2.4.4Meta‐studies capturing a wide range of poverty indicators  are included.All meta‐studies were screened by two research assistants independently, with the two review authors independently reviewing each meta‐study marked for inclusion. Full texts were obtained and screened when a decision could not be made; an arbitration procedure was in place in case of disagreements.2.5A total of 32 meta‐studies were identified after completing the screening process. However, only 11 of these were assessed to be of sufficient methodological quality to be included in the final analysis. We note that a large number of these meta‐studies voiced concerns about the low quality of the primary evidence base that formed the basis of their syntheses, which in turn raises concerns about the reliability of the overall findings presented at the review level. Combining a wide range of low quality studies into systematic reviews to aggregate their findings is risky.1.Context2.Type of intervention3.Type of review, design, and methods used4.Outcome measures5.Quality assessment6.Study results and findings.A coding tool was developed to extract data from the included meta‐studies on the following areas of interest:Data were extracted at the meta‐study level. However, for meta‐studies classified as high‐ and medium‐confidence, when necessary, we also extracted information at the primary study level.The synthesis of results was guided by a theory‐based mixed methods synthesis approach with a focus on a narrative synthesis that incorporates quantitative elements as appropriate.2.6Five out of the 11 (medium‐ and high‐confidence) meta‐studies that we reviewed drew largely positive conclusions about the relationship between financial services access and changes for poor people, and the other six drew largely mixed, neutral, or unclear conclusions. The detailed review of the evidence base uncovered a nuanced picture, reflecting large variations across the effects of different interventions and for different people in different contexts. Findings across the reviews were heterogeneous and often inconsistent, both within and across reviews, and many reviews did not find evidence of expected or presumed impacts.The impacts are more likely to be positive than negative, but the effects vary, are often mixed, and appear not to be transformative in scope or scale, as they largely occur in the early stages of the causal chain.The effects of financial services on core economic poverty indicators such as incomes, assets or spending are small and inconsistent.The effects of financial services on women's empowerment appear to be generally positive, but they depend upon programme features , context, and what aspects of empowerment are considered, and their assessment is confounded by a difficulty of consistently conceptualising and measuring empowerment.The effects of credit and other financial services on health status and other social outcomes appear to be small or nonexistent.There is no evidence for meaningful behaviour‐change outcomes leading to further positive effects.Accessing savings opportunities appears to have small but much more consistently positive effects for poor people, and bears fewer downside risks for clients than credit.The present high‐level evidence does not suggest that financial inclusion initiatives have transformative effects. On average, financial services may not even have a meaningful net positive effect on poor or low‐income users, although some services have some positive effects for some people. Overall, we find:Many of the primary studies that were included in the meta‐studies we analysed in depth had medium or even high risk of bias, due to their study design, poor reporting of methodology, and other causes. As some of the meta‐studies highlighted, it is mainly the higher risk of bias studies that drive most of the positive impact estimates. Our findings thus broadly confirm the “stainless steel” law of evidence that, the more rigorous and lower risk of bias studies become, the less likely they are to find effects. This applies to both our reviews and to the underlying primary evidence that they have reviewed. Given that the reviews we classified as being of lower methodological quality were more likely to report positive effects, we must treat their positive findings with caution.In summary, almost all effect sizes we find are quite small and hardly indicative of transformative changes from financial inclusion, and are found dominantly on lower‐order or intermediate outcomes. Many effects are strongly heterogeneous, both across studies and over time, places, populations, gender, ethnicity and between interventions; this suggests them to be unreliable and/or context‐dependent. Positive findings tend not to repeat from one context, intervention type or study to another, and at least as many findings are mixed or inconclusive as are positive. As a result, the positive results found for financial inclusion are fragile, and need to be treated with caution. An exception appears to be with regard to savings, where both immediate outcomes and wider poverty measures are affected in a positive, but relatively small, way; however, we base this mainly on the findings of one high confidence meta‐analysis  truth that seems to emerge about financial inclusion is that it is not changing the world. On average, financial services may not even have a meaningful net positive effect on poor or low‐income users, although some services have some positive effects for some people. Considering that for most people financial services  will be only one among many possible determinants of their life chances and their socioeconomic well‐being, this finding ought not to be unexpected, and we anticipate that it will be confirmed by future research. The potential and actual impacts of financial inclusion need to be viewed against those of comparable interventions, such as graduation and livelihoods‐enhancement programmes.We note that, fortunately, our findings regarding impact chime in with an emerging realism around microfinance, including in the donor community: recognising that erstwhile claims of transformative impact were unrealistic and that the hype for microfinance, particularly microcredit, was overblown. We welcome this newfound realism and wish to encourage it with the help of this review, in which we provide a systematic overview of the evidence as well as the areas of doubt in the evidence base. At the same time, we wished that going through all stages of the hype cycle—enthusiasm, inflated expectations, and disillusionment—had not been necessary in order to arrive here. And we must warn that we see a similar hype of strong claims emerging around the much more encompassing notion of financial inclusion, with the promise of marrying macro‐structural economic improvements with micro‐structural poverty relief. We found no evidence for the wider claims made for the beneficence of financial inclusion, as offering poor people a better service, or as having broader macro‐structural effects, being any truer than those once made for microfinance, in large part due to a lack of appropriate research at the meta‐study level. We strongly caution against repeating the hype cycle, this time around the idea of financial inclusion.At the same time, we think it crucial to bear in mind that the alternative to financial inclusion is not to do “nothing,” but rather it is necessary to uncover what kinds of interventions work best for whom and where, and how best to deliver them. The policy and research space—and ultimately poor and low‐income people themselves—would benefit from a more open and clear‐sighted discussion on the many valid alternatives to financial inclusion programming and on how best to gain the necessary evidence to inform that discussion. To this end, our review also includes a brief examination of the impact evidence for graduation and livelihoods programmes.In terms of evidence gaps, it is noteworthy that none of the meta‐studies we reviewed  managed to assess debt levels or indebtedness patterns in depth as an outcome of financial inclusion. While we cannot comment on the reasons for the lack of attention paid to the issue, except that we are aware of it also being a blind spot of the underlying primary studies, we find this to be a glaring omission of the financial inclusion literature as a whole. We believe the political economy of research funding needs to shift such that researchers are enabled and encouraged to more rigorously explore the most important potential downsides and risks of development initiatives like financial inclusion. Furthermore, we found no evidence  for the claim that financial inclusion interventions lead to macroeconomic development and subsequent improvements in the lives of the poor; this may be because the argument has only become prominent in recent years. There is also not much attention given  to service/amenities‐related programmes such as water credit, sanitation loans, or loans for micro solar systems, especially the notion of “Green Microfinance” where microfinance is applied to promote environmental sustainability.Moreover, given that the majority of financial inclusion effects we found in assessing the high‐ and medium‐confidence studies were at the early stages of the causal chain, there is a need for studies to better capture long‐term effects and demonstrate more meaningful impacts, especially at the final stages of the causal chain. The vast majority of the studies that our meta‐studies reviewed had a duration of 1–3 years. These studies are likelier to find changes in behaviours or attitudes rather than structural changes to people's poverty status, and it is not safe to assume that the latter will result from the former. The design of most studies underlying the meta‐studies that we reviewed has not been conducive to establishing whether short‐term or immediate outcomes  would translate into intermediate outcomes (such as savings accumulation or microenterprise income) and especially more distal, transformative outcomes (higher net worth or higher incomes). We would suggest that this also reflects a problem of the political economy of development research, with a combination of funder restrictions (favouring shorter timelines over multi‐year projects) and difficulty of gaining long‐term support from implementer organisations discouraging appropriate designs.We have also encountered some important limitations of working at this level of systematisation, including: difficulties of assessing the reliability of the levels of evidence underlying ours; analysing effect sizes that are presented in standardised and indexed form, which often reveal little about the underlying measures used; the different ways in which data have been analysed and findings presented across very different types of meta‐studies; crude categories for intervention and outcome types, lumping together a highly diverse evidence base that muddies the waters further. Another problem we encountered was that the meta‐studies we reviewed, regardless of their own quality, often built on a relatively weak underlying base of underlying studies, making their findings fragile. To put it differently, combining a wide range of low quality studies into systematic reviews to aggregate their findings is risky, and perhaps analogous to the behaviour of financial institutions in the run‐up to the 2008 financial crisis, with pooling dubious individual assets (such as subprime mortgages and loans) into “triple‐A” structured financial products, with only seemingly better aggregate results.Going forward, we would recommend that authors of primary studies and meta‐studies engage more critically with study quality and ensure better, more detailed reporting of the concepts, data and methods they used. At the systematic review of review level, more methods guidance  and clearer reporting standards that adapt the Cochrane  guidance to the social science and international development context would be helpful.33.1Financial inclusion is presently one of the most widely recognised areas of activity in international development. As of 2017, globally, about 1.7 billion adults were counted as “unbanked”, not having an account at a financial institution or through a mobile money provider, but 515 million adults worldwide opened an account between 2014 and 2017  provided by a variety of financial service providers, of which MFIs are a subset, will allow poor and low‐income households in low‐ and middle‐income countries to enhance their welfare, grasp opportunities, mitigate shocks, and ultimately escape poverty, as well as advance macroeconomic development, which is also expected to benefit poor/low‐income households  have sought to clarify the impacts from financial inclusion on poor people in low‐ and middle‐income countries, based on an array of different underlying studies which include quantitative and qualitative work based on long‐term and short‐term data. The bulk of these meta‐studies have been focused on microfinance, and many specifically on microcredit. The very different quality and approaches of these meta‐studies, and of the studies underlying them, however, pose a major challenge for policymakers, programme managers and practitioners in assessing the benefits and drawbacks of finance‐based approaches to poverty alleviation. Increasingly there is confusion about the impacts and a risk of “cherry picking” among different findings. Further, many meta‐studies are not taking into account what is missing from their primary studies, which would affect the understanding of the evidence, for example by not analysing or reporting gendered impacts. More recently, primary studiesto better inform the decisions of development donors, policymakers and programme managers by establishing what is known and not known about the impacts, using a meta review methodology;to facilitate better research by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of existing systematic reviews and meta‐analyses, and suggesting pathways toward improved and common standards and methods, particularly with more explicit attention to gendered equity determinants and better use of qualitative studies;to understand better the political economy of knowledge, which may explain which questions are asked and why, what analysis used and why, and how results are interpreted.Our primary aim is to gain better clarity about the impacts of financial inclusion on the poor by systematically reviewing the existing systematic reviews and meta‐analyses (meta‐studies). Unlike most previous systematic reviews, which focused on microfinance interventions (or subsets thereof), we explicitly adopt a broader scope to review any available systematic review and or meta‐analysis evidence on financial inclusion as a whole field. Greater clarity through greater evidence systematisation is urgently needed given the strong focus on expanding access to financial services in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 1 on eradicating poverty3.2Financial inclusion is an umbrella term, which the World Bank Group defines as follows: “Financial inclusion means that individuals and businesses have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs—transactions, payments, savings, credit and insurance—delivered in a responsible and sustainable way.”Microfinance refers to the provision of financial services including loans, savings accounts, insurance , and money transfer services, specifically to poor and low‐income people in low‐ and middle‐income countries around the world who are not usually served by the regular banking sector, by dedicated providers who collectively identify as MFIs; these providers may range in size and type from small, local nonprofit NGOs to large commercial microfinance companies. Financial inclusion interventions refer to the range of broader efforts to expand financial systems to deliver financial services—loans, savings, insurance or payment services—to a wider client base, in particular poor and low‐income people in low‐ and middle‐income countries, that has not traditionally been served by the regular banking sector, by any range of formal service providers.The field of interventions to bring about financial inclusion in low‐ and middle‐income countries is diverse and complex. It encompasses microfinance, as the best‐known intervention in this space, but increasingly extends well beyond it. The financial services provided in the financial inclusion space are of four main types: credit, savings, insurance and payment services. The most commonly‐provided services within financial inclusion still are microcredit loans, made to about 211 million families worldwide  outcomes. Using a theory of change or “logic model” allows us to link “programme inputs and activities to a chain of intended or observed outcomes, and then [use] this model to guide the evaluation” . Our systematic review of reviews is theory‐based in the sense that it examines the evidence for and against the correctness of the theory of change underlying financial inclusion programming. The importance of developing and applying a theory of change—to clarify how “the intervention is expected to have its intended impact” White, , p. 274— Rogers, . In otheFinancial inclusion encompasses a wide range of intervention types and approaches, and numerous different types of intended outcomes and impacts have been suggested as part of its transformative impacts and as intermediary steps leading to them. Given this complexity, our theory of change must necessarily be abstract, simplified, and non‐exhaustive, highlighting main (or exemplary) channels of influence rather than all possible effects (and cross‐linkages between effects) of financial inclusion interventions, Figure any or several or all of these financial services) to immediate changes (lower‐order outcomes) and from there to more transformative changes (higher‐order outcomes). In doing this, we distinguish between four outcome categories: economic, social, gender, and behavioural  income‐earning opportunity, such as a job that requires travel. Credit or savings might also be used to mitigate a shock, invest in a household asset, or pay off a more expensive loan. Credit or savings can allow people to accumulate a lump sum for a large investment, cope with shocks, or simply to avoid more expensive credit. Lower‐order outcomes, that is, impacts found on outcomes early in the causal chain, would include the simple fact of having an enterprise (rather than none), increasing the size of one's enterprise, accessing new or better employment, accruing more savings, and having smoother consumption patterns (for instance no periods of hunger). Higher‐order outcomes that occur further along the causal chain  would include sustainably higher incomes and more assets or wealth . The ability to consume more goods sustainably  is also a higher‐order outcome; however the sustainability of consumption is difficult to ascertain, because changes in consumption levels are might stem from positive causes (such as having more available income) or negative causes (such as higher costs or spending on credit).3.3.2Health: Financial services, particularly when accompanied with training or awareness‐raising efforts, might positively affect health knowledge, attitudes or behaviours (lower‐order outcomes), which in turn may lead to improved health outcomes (higher‐order). Increased incomes, savings or spending capacity would also enable people to access to health services by making them more affordable, leading to better health outcomes (as a higher‐order outcome). Increased income independence and improved control over their own destiny for women could improve their health outcomes in particular. Reduced poverty or increased capabilities resulting initially access to financial services could also improve mental health and psychological well‐being (higher‐order).Social‐relational: In particular with forms of financial service delivery that lead to more regular and positive interaction in groups (lower‐order), clients’ social ties and social capital might be strengthened and community bonds be created (higher‐order). Reduced poverty at an individual level may also improve clients’ social capital, as they rise in the estimation of others (higher‐order).Services: reduced poverty, which may result from financial inclusion, would make households more able to pay for services such as schooling, water and sanitation (lower‐order outcomes), which in turn would lead to better health and economic outcomes (higher‐order outcomes). Financial products might also be used by clients directly to finance access to particular services or amenities, if they choose to do so; or financial services may be linked to the purchase or use of particular products, as with school savings accounts or sanitation loans. Financial service delivery might also include components of sensitisation, awareness or attitude‐change, to increase clients’ propensity to use (or pay for) particular amenities.Under the heading of “social outcomes” we collect the gamut of other beneficial outcomes that are not strictly behavioural, economic or gender‐related. We break these down further into three broad categories: health , social‐relational , and access to beneficial services (such as water or schooling). In theory, financial inclusion might affect these in multiple different ways, again with lower‐order outcomes leading to higher‐order outcomes within each category.3.3.3Financial services may have very different impacts on women and men, particularly if they target women or at least are accessible for women. Many financial inclusion programmes (particularly microfinance and SHGs) have a history of targeting women and aiming to effect women's empowerment; some modes of digital financial services have also been claimed to have positive effects particularly for women by allowing them to save independently, despite not targeting women. In theory, financial services could affect gender relations in a number of complex and interrelated ways, which would be difficult to label as lower‐order or higher‐order.3.3.4It has been suggested, particularly by behavioural economists and recently the World Bank,3.3.5Lastly, in recent years, it has been suggested that inclusive financial sectors are conducive to macroeconomic development, from which poor and low‐income people in turn would benefit  have generated few strong or unambiguous results, suggesting that the improvements in poor people's lives that accrue from financial inclusion are relatively small or manifest mainly as intermediary impacts—changes in behaviours and spending patterns, rather than changes in incomes or well‐being—, at least in the shorter term. Presently, too little is known across different meta‐studies with different approaches, and a systematic review of reviews helps generate a clearer picture.Existing meta‐studies have reviewed primary studies of many different types of financial services. A substantial number of systematic reviews, meta‐analyses and research syntheses on financial inclusion and closely connected topics exist. However, the focus of the bulk of studies  has been on credit and credit‐type  services, particularly those provided by MFIs. The evidence based on other services is smaller but growing rapidly, particularly in the area of mobile service provision and fintech for development.The existing meta‐studies have followed diverse approaches. Some of the systematic reviews (or meta‐studies) are fairly broad, aiming to cover the whole microfinance spectrum ; not all meta‐studies that have impacted policy discussions have used a systematic methodology  and which gaps and white spaces remain in terms of knowledge about the impacts. Rather than visualise these gaps and white spaces, we describe them narratively, focusing on a range of parameters , which in turn inform our synthesis approach which, among other things, also focuses on the following unresolved questions (discussed in more depth in the section outlining our approach to data synthesis):A clear mapping of knowledge gaps allows policy‐oriented research funders to better direct funds towards addressing the gaps, and the systematic reviewing of known impacts allows policymakers to focus their efforts on those interventions that are known to work best, on where they work best, or to improve or otherwise eschew them. Our stakeholder engagement strategy includes a non‐technical report (for 3ie), dissemination events, and work with our advisory board of policy‐ and research‐related stakeholders.44.1The objective of this systematic review of reviews is to systematically collect and appraise the existing systematic reviews and meta‐analyses of financial inclusion impacts, analyse the strength of the methods used, synthesise the findings from those systematic reviews and meta‐analyses, and report implications for policy, programming, practice and further research.Systematic reviews of reviews have been undertaken in other sectors for which evidence is widely available, especially health  poverty impacts of different types of inclusive financial services , regardless of provider, on poor and low‐income people in low‐ and middle‐income countries?○What is known from existing meta‐studies about the gendered impacts of different types of financial inclusion activity —in other words, what does the evidence tell us about how gendered participation affects interventions’ effects, and about whether or not (and in what ways) financial services empower women in low‐ and middle‐income countries?○What is known from existing meta‐studies about the reasons for financial services uptake, or other participant views about the financial services on offer?Impacts○Including using a gender and equity lens, what methods and standards have meta‐studies used to draw conclusions from the studies they reviewed?○What difference does the choice of methods and standards make to the results?○How could the methods and standards be improved in order to draw more robust and reliable conclusions via meta‐studies?MethodologyThis study critically reviews existing approaches to systematic reviews of reviews with a view to further developing systematic review of review methods, and it aims to answer the following questions to gain better clarity about financial inclusion impacts:55.15.1.1A systematic review summarises the best available evidence on a specific question using transparent procedures to locate, evaluate, and integrate the findings of relevant research .In the Cochrane Handbook (Higgins & Green 2011), the following definition of systematic reviews is outlined which we adopted:A set of clearly stated objectives and pre‐defined eligibility criteriaA methodology that is clearly defined allowing reproducibilityA search strategy that allows the identification of studies meeting the pre‐defined eligibility criteriaA critical appraisal of included studiesA systematic synthesis, in many cases systematic reviews adopt a meta‐analytical approach which is a statistical method to synthesise the results of primary studies included in a systematic reviewHiggins and Green (+++2011) specify the key elements that a systematic review should contain:“Meta‐analysis [is] the statistical combination of results from two or more separate studies” to produce an overall statistic with the aim to provide a precise estimate of the effects of an intervention .To identify meta‐analyses, we adopted the definition of the Cochrane Handbook :It should be noted that not every systematic review automatically contains a meta‐analysis, for example, if primary studies are too heterogeneous in terms of study designs, conceptual framings and or outcomes, then a meta‐analysis may not be appropriate. Furthermore, occasionally meta‐analyses are published separately without drawing on the broader systematic review they may have been originated from.We exclude any evidence that did not meet the definitions we outlined above.5.1.2The scopes of the meta‐studies we include are diverse  but there is considerable overlap in terms of their population of interest. Almost all focus on the impacts of financial inclusion on poor households based in low‐ or middle‐income countries . In this systematic review of reviews, we include all meta‐studies that address at least one or more of these domains. We group the indicators in three categories of impacts: social, economic, or behavioural. We do not distinguish between primary or secondary outcomes but consider all outcome measures.Our systematic review of reviews also assesses the evidence for outcomes early along the causal chain; most importantly rates of uptake, and then investment in productive activity, human capital accumulation, improved money management, savings accumulation, risk/shock management, health and nutrition spending, and women's economic activity. These might be enablers of improvements on poverty indicators further along the causal chain (over a longer term) even if, importantly, should not themselves be taken as evidence of impact in terms of poverty alleviation.At the primary study level, our outcomes of interest would be outcomes that address at least one or more of the poverty domains described above.5.1.5The first systematic reviews engaging with financial inclusion issues .We did not need to make any changes to the eligibility criteria set out in this section during the course of the search and screening process relates to MECIR checklist, item 12).Evidence is included irrespective of its publication status Academic Search Complete (EBSCO)EconLit—Via EBSCO Discovery ServiceRePEc—Via EBSCO Discovery ServiceWorld Bank e‐Library—Via EBSCO Discovery ServiceScopus (Elsevier)Web of ScienceWe searched the following bibliographic databases:5.2.2The following institutional websites were searched:Financial inclusion‐specific institutions and web portals:www.cgap.orgCGAP: www.themix.orgMicrobanking Bulletin: www.microfinancegateway.orgMicrofinance Gateway: www.mfnetwork.orgMicrofinance Network: http://www.seepnetwork.orgSEEP: Grameen FoundationBRAC Research and Evaluation DivisionAlliance for Financial InclusionAccion Centre for Financial Inclusion.Multilateral and bilateral and non‐governmental donor organisations:World Bank African Development BankAsian Development BankInter‐American Development BankDFID—R4D websiteUSAID.Research institutions and research networks:Centre for Global DevelopmentJ‐PAL3ie databases on systematic reviewsELDISSSRNResearchGateAcademia.eduAfter completing the screening process, we ran citation searches on included meta‐studies in Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science to identify more recent systematic reviews and or meta‐analyses not retrieved in database searches.We piloted our key search terms (see Appendix 1 for full search strategies) and ran preliminary searches in EconLit (EBSCO) (510 hits), Scopus (1035 hits), RePEc (EBSCO) (238 hits), Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) (366 hits), and Web of Science (2014 hits). Search strategies were constructed using both textwords (title/abstracts) and where available index terms. Each strategy consisted of 3 parts—Intervention , Study design (adapted from 3ie's search filter for its systematic review database), and LMICs (adapted from the Cochrane EPOC Group's LMICs filter based on World Bank definition of LMICs). We adjusted our search strategy for each database and web source. No restriction was placed on language of papers but all searches were limited to 2010 onwards . We adopted a snowballing  approach to ensure we have not missed any key systematic reviews and or meta‐analyses. We also consulted our advisory board to get their views on the sample of included studies and highlight any omissions. We ensured that our searches for all relevant databases were up to date, that is, they were updated within 12 months before publication of our study. In addition, we approached leading authors working on financial inclusion topics to double check that we are not missing out on any relevant ongoing studies.5.35.3.1Two research assistants (RAs) screened all titles and abstracts of the studies identified by the academic and grey literature searches. Any disagreements were discussed and reconciled. The two review authors (MD and PM) independently reviewed each meta‐study marked for inclusion by the RAs to confirm the inclusion decision. Full texts were obtained and screened when a decision could not be made based on title and abstract screening. Disagreements were resolved by discussion or by involving a third party  if a consensus could not be reached.A PRISMA ﬂow diagram is presented in the results section (below) to summarise the study selection process and a table with excluded studies along with the reasons for exclusion is included in Appendix 5—see results section for more in depth discussions.5.3.2Data were extracted by three RAs using the KoBo Toolbox1.Context2.Type of intervention3.Type of review, design and methods used4.Outcome measures5.Quality assessment6.Study results and findingsWe extracted data on the following areas  to allow similar analyses of included studies.We extracted information at the systematic review level. However, for systematic reviews classified as high and medium confidence, when necessary, we also extracted information at the primary study level on, for example, especially individual programme design, quality, and so forth.5.3.2.1Some of the meta‐studies in our study sample have been published in multiple places, for instance as a Campbell systematic review but also as a peer‐reviewed journal article  developed by Shea et al. , which i developeWe classed as medium‐low or medium‐confidence any meta‐studies that were classed either as at least “moderate quality” using the AMSTAR 2 tool or “medium confidence” using the adapted 3ie checklist. We classed as medium‐high or high‐confidence those meta‐studies that were classed as “high quality” or “high confidence” by at least one of the tools. We excluded from the final in‐depth analysis any studies that were classed lower than medium‐low confidence, that is, were not classed as at least “moderate” or “medium” by either of the tools. Instead of “quality”, throughout this review we use the term “confidence”, to highlight clearly distinction between the different levels of confidence in the absence of bias that we can have in the included studies.The 3ie critical appraisal checklist and AMSTAR 2 tool were applied independently by the RAs and both review authors , and disagreements were resolved by discussion or by involving a third party  if a consensus could not be reached.5.3.3.2We attempted to extract GRADE ratings from each included meta‐study to assess the quality of the evidence. However, all except one of the included reviews adopted quality assessment approaches other than GRADE. Where this was the case, we reported the tool that was used and recorded its overall quality score, if one was given. We adapted the GRADE criteria related to risk of bias, inconsistency, imprecision, indirectness and publication bias  and explore whether the types of interventions or the number and/or types of the underlying primary studies play a role. We provide descriptive information on these topics for selected key outcomes.66.16.1.1We initially identified 4,611 records from searching seven bibliographic databases. An additional 133 records were identified by trawling through websites of financial inclusion‐specific institutions and research networks. Sophisticated search terms trialled during the protocol stage (see Appendix 1 for details) were used and adapted for websites that only allowed limited search functions.After removing duplicates, 3,717 records were screened independently by title and abstract by two RAs, with quality assurance from both lead review authors (MD and PM). On the basis of the title and abstract screening, 3,621 records were removed, leaving 96 records to be independently screened by the two lead review authors. Of these 96 records, 52 were excluded based on title and abstract screening. Twenty records required full text review, which led to exclusion of an additional 12 studies, that is, a total of 64 studies were excluded (see Appendix 5 for details) leaving a final sample of 32 studies for data extraction—Figure After the search and screening process, a quality appraisal was conducted (described in Section 6.2), which disaggregated the sample of 32 included studies by levels of confidence. Twenty‐one studies were classified as low‐confidence and 11 studies as medium‐ or high‐confidence . As outlined in the protocol  focused on one intervention type—predominantly microcredit (six studies) or micro‐savings/CBSGs —followed by four studies covering two types, six studies covering three types and three studies being broader, covering four or five intervention types . In Appendix 4, we provide additional information describing the included studies, disaggregating them using PICOSThe meta‐studies covered a range of financial inclusion interventions (Appendix 3 provides details on the main research questions of each of the included reviews). We categorised studies by five broad intervention types: microcredit, microinsurance, microsavings, CBSGs and broader/mixed microfinance interventions. The latter category mainly refers to interventions that provided either a mixture of services or an unclear combination of services; it may also contain further sub‐intervention types, such as financial literacy or financial skills training, money transfers and other types of activities which the studies themselves may or may not specify. The table below indicates that out of 32 studies, the majority of studies . A total of 183 outcomes are reported with 87 outcomes reported across the 11 medium‐ and high‐confidence studies and 96 outcomes reported across the 21 low confidence studies. All studies report on multiple (sub‐) outcomes across all broad outcome categories.Looking across the 32 included studies, the number of outcomes by broad outcome category are as follows  were excluded, largely because of not meeting the inclusion criteria for “types of intervention”—this applies to 27 studies, which did not address at least one or more type of intervention that clearly aimed at financial inclusion. Eleven studies did not meet the inclusion criteria for “types of reviews” or “study design”; notably, some studies were labelled by their authors as systematic reviews, but did not meet basic criteria for any systematic review or the definition we put forward in the “Methods” section. One study did not meet the inclusion criteria for “types of participants”, or “population”, and 25 additional duplicates were identified.6.1.4Given that all our included meta‐studies were published within less than a decade of one another  in question in order to avoid duplication.Examining the review questions for overlap was less straightforward, as each review had very distinct focal areas . To investigate whether the same pool of primary studies had formed the basis of many of our reviews, we tasked two RAs to list all primary studies included in the 32 meta‐studies and count how many times each of the included primary studies was included in the synthesis of each of the reviews. Contrary to our expectations, we found only limited overlap across all 32 meta‐studies. Overlap within the pool of low‐confidence studies was more substantial, compared to the medium‐ and high‐confidence studies.In the case of the 11 medium‐ and high‐confidence studies , where we found correlations of up to 83%  and 71%  of the 32 meta‐studies that we included, as discussed in depth in the “Data collection and analysis” section above.The quality appraisal or risk‐of‐bias process in the context of reviewing systematic reviews is different from the standard process commonly used in systematic reviews themselves. This is due to the unique methodological characteristics of systematic reviews, which need to be reflected in the quality appraisal criteria. As outlined in Section 5.3.3. and Table AMSTAR 2 is based on 16 criteria, each allowing a rating of “yes”, “partial yes”, or “no”, adding up to a summary assessment of the quality of the systematic review. Shea et al.  note, hoGiven the importance of unpacking causal mechanisms to understand how, why and for whom an intervention works, we adapted the 3ie checklist to include criteria that relate to the explicit use of theory in meta‐studies and to what extend an analysis of the causal chain is undertaken . We find that none of the 32 included meta‐studies scored very highly in this regard, suggesting that more encouragement would be needed to ensure reviewers explicitly incorporate theory in the systematic review process.It is worth mentioning that AMSTAR 2 in particular very much focuses on technical and procedural aspects of the systematic review process, such as: did the meta‐study include all components of PICO? Did the review authors perform study selection and data extraction in duplicate? Did authors use a satisfactory technique to assess risk of bias? Were appropriate statistical techniques used if meta‐analysis was conducted? In the case of some of the reviews we examined, answers to these questions were not reported in the final published study, which may partially explain their low quality assessment; that is, why we have low confidence in their results. Lack of reporting of substantive issues related to processes, methods and data is a frequent occurrence, not just in the context of meta‐studies but of primary studies, too. In other words, if a particular meta‐study is categorised as low quality, or low confidence, according to AMSTAR 2 or the 3ie tool, this does not necessarily mean that it does not substantially contribute to the discussion of financial inclusion impacts. But it does mean that the evidence for it meeting certain “critical domains” .The quality assessment of the included studies using AMSTAR 2 and the 3ie critical appraisal checklist led to the removal from in‐depth review of a large number of studies: 21 to be precise. We will not discuss their findings or evidence base in any further depth. As a next step, we must examine the quality of the primary evidence that underlay the remaining 11 medium‐ and high confidence‐reviews. Sixty‐four percent of the medium‐ and high‐confidence reviews indicate limitations that led to the inclusion of at least some low‐quality primary evidence. For example, Brody et al.  note tha“in terms of methodological quality, apart from Husain, Mukherjee, and Dutta , all stuSimilarly, Vaessen et al.  write th“the studies with low risk of bias have low overall effect sizes compared to studies with medium and high risk of bias across outcome indicators. This indicates that there exists the possibility of exaggerated effects, arising from low‐quality impact evaluation” (p. 7).Gopalaswamy et al.  acknowle“almost all impact evaluations of microfinance suffer from weak methodologies and inadequate data [….] This can lead to misconceptions about the actual effects of a microfinance programme, thereby diverting attention from the search for perhaps more pro‐poor interventions” (p. 4).Duvendack et al.  go so fa“unreliable or biased results may lead to erroneous conclusions” (p. 242).Finally, Steinert et al.  concludeIn short, there are major concerns in relation to the quality of the primary evidence that informed the findings of even the medium‐ and high‐confidence meta‐studies we include in our review. Hence, it pays to be cautious about how much one can trust the overall findings presented in the systematic review evidence, as one simply cannot transform “dross into gold”  and EPPI‐Centre guidelines . Furthermore, and more notably, the effect sizes overall are quite small and do not plausibly indicate transformative changes.n < 100) tend to report larger, more positive effect sizes than reviews with larger sample sizes (n > 100), and that they are often of lower methodological quality. In the case of our medium‐ and high‐confidence reviews, the sample of primary studies they included range from 12 to 90, positioning our reviews in the small‐sample category. Thirty‐six percent of the 11 medium‐ and high‐confidence studies also voice concerns about the limited quantity of evidence they included.Many of the effects we found are strongly heterogeneous, both across studies and over time, places, populations, and between interventions. There may also be an issue with small sample bias. Slavin and Smith  and otheand wider poverty measures are affected in a positive but relatively small way.We should also note that positive findings tend not to repeat from one context to another. At least as many findings are mixed or inconclusive as are positive. With reference to the financial inclusion theory of change (presented in the “Background” section), most of the positive impact estimates are for outcomes that are early along the causal chain (discussed in more depth below), such as health‐focused meta‐studies finding changes in health knowledge, but not in health outcomes, or meta‐studies looking at enterprise activity finding growth in business ventures run by households but not in household incomes as a result. An exception appears to be for savings, where both immediate outcomes In the following, more detailed, discussion of results, we cluster the findings of studies for four outcome categories—economic, social, behavioural and gender outcomes—and relate the findings to different financial intervention‐types (as applicable) with reference to the theory of change presented in the section “How the intervention might work”.6.3.2As explained in the theory of change, in theory, financial inclusion could lead to benefits for poor people through changes in their financial behaviours such that they use financial services to gain access to new income sources or enhance existing ones, to save money that they would otherwise spend or lose, to invest in assets, to sustainably consume more goods, or to cope with shocks. Lower‐order outcomes, that is, outcomes found on outcomes early in the causal chain, would include the fact of having an enterprise, increasing the size of one's enterprise, accessing employment, saving more, and having smoother consumption patterns; these could, in turn, be enablers of higher‐order outcomes further along the causal chain. Higher‐order outcomes would include sustainably higher incomes and more assets or wealth. Consumption is an ambiguous indicator, because higher consumption might stem from a higher income and ability to consume or from higher costs that represent a financial drain; likewise, a reduction in consumption could indicate lower costs and more savings or financial distress or unsustainable consumption that has led to distress.6.3.36.3.3.1There were four meta‐studies that looked at microenterprise investment, size or profits as an outcome. Chliova et al.  found si6.3.3.2Two meta‐studies looked at labour supply and employment. Gopalaswamy et al.  found th6.3.3.3Four meta‐studies engaged with savings as an outcome, one of them in depth. Steinert et al.  meta‐ana6.3.3.4No meta‐study explicitly examined the effects of financial services on households’ costs or expenses. However, Peters et al.’s  qualitat6.3.3.5The evidence for consumption‐smoothing and dealing with shocks (in the four meta‐studies that examine this) tends to be thin; this may at least partly stem from the methodological challenges of assessing it. Peters et al.’s  review o6.3.46.3.4.1Moving on to higher‐level outcomes : four meta‐studies specifically examined the effects of financial services on incomes. The meta‐analysis by Gopalaswamy et al.  found a 6.3.4.2Another indication of poverty reduction would be the accumulation of more assets, increasing households’ net worth. Five meta‐studies examined this. Peters et al.’s  review o6.3.4.3r = .16, 95% CI ). However, this finding was based mostly on  studies with higher risk of bias. Duvendack et al.  may indicate different things. On the one hand, they could indicate higher incomes and the resultant ability to consume more; on the other hand, they could indicate unsustainable spending patterns fuelled by debt or driven by worsening circumstances. Without further information, it is thus unclear whether improvements or exacerbations are measured. Also, there are important differences in how credit versus savings may act to enable changes in consumption expenditure.Four meta‐studies explicitly—and one implicitly, as part of “financial well‐being” , and with fewer downsides for clients compared to credit. Having said that, Stewart et al.  indicate6.3.5We have collected under the heading of social outcomes the gamut of beneficial outcomes that are not strictly economic or gender‐related. In the meta‐studies that we reviewed, these fell into three broad categories: social‐relational , health , and access to beneficial services (such as water or schooling). It is difficult to distinguish any of these categories themselves as lower‐ and higher‐order outcomes, and rather there are pathways from lower‐ to higher‐order outcomes within each of them, as we point out below  for the clients and their families, which they suggested may be partially offset by some detrimental effects of credit, such as removal of children from school for work. Gopalaswamy et al.’s . Chliova et al.’s  meta‐anaet al.’s  meta‐anaet al.’s  found thet al.’s  found soWe found no reviewing regarding the impacts of financial services on access to other services, such as water, sanitation, or electricity.6.3.5.3r = .08, 95% CI ) that the authors suggested they might be partially offset by detrimental effects of credit. Steinert et al.’s (2018) meta‐analysis found no evidence for a health‐related effectiveness of savings programmes in Sub‐Saharan Africa, neither in terms of general health status nor health investments. Stewart et al.  and was possibly offset by negative aspects of credit usage. Steinert et al.’s (2018) meta‐analysis found signiﬁcant increases in food security  from savings promotion programmes in Sub‐Saharan Africa, while Stewart et al. , we make no distinction between lower‐ and higher‐order gender outcomes, and rather we report findings for several specific gender‐related impacts before reporting findings for women's empowerment more broadly.All 11 medium‐ and high‐confidence meta‐studies took an interest in gender and women's empowerment in one way or another. Two meta‐studies, both including a meta‐analysis, explicitly focused on women's empowerment  to be heterogeneous across different women and different contexts , measured as women being allowed to make decisions regarding the purchase of assets, which they argued stands out among their results in terms of its magnitude. This indicates, they suggested, that microcredit participation triggers a virtuous cycle, starting with microcredit groups assigning women responsibilities and rights, and leading to repeated social and economic interactions, which could confer power onto women and facilitate the joint pursuit of common interests. However, to the contrary, Duvendack et al.’s (2011) global review of the impacts of microfinance (predominantly microcredit) found no robust evidence of positive impacts overall on women's empowerment. In South Asia, Gopalaswamy et al.’s  explain the effects. The effects of specifically gender‐targeted programme elements were larger than those of the actual financial service  or through experience gained over time in using money and financial services. Particular financial products might, as a by‐product of their usage, change users’ money‐usage patterns over time, for instance leading to higher propensities to save, more investment in business, or less spending on particular goods such as “temptation goods” . Yet relevant changes in these might still count as early‐stage effects on a trajectory towards poverty alleviation. The reviewed reviews, however, turned up few relevant clear results. Steinert et al.’s (2018) meta‐analysis of savings promotion in Sub‐Saharan Africa found that programmes that actually delivered savings services were significantly more effective at raising savings than those seeking to change savings‐related attitudes, build financial literacy or raise demand for savings services. While they found a trend towards increases in ﬁnancial literacy levels, heterogeneity levels were high , and demand‐based programmes, namely ones that focused on ﬁnancial literacy and ﬁnancial education, were not associated with signiﬁcant changes in immediate or more transformative poverty‐related outcomes. For SHGs in South Asia, Brody et al.  found hi6.3.7.3No strong or clear findings regarding entrepreneurship propensity emerged from the reviewed literature. As mentioned above (under economic outcomes), effects of financial service access on venture growth and survival were mixed and small, where present. Chliova et al.’s  meta‐ana6.3.7.4Behaviour‐changes could be enablers of more transformative changes. However, we found little evidence for behaviour‐related changes among the meta‐studies. A number of intricate and complex findings emerged, but none suggested consistently significant positive or negative changes. Effects on of credit and savings products on spending and saving patterns were mixed, inconsistent, and heterogeneous, and no evidence showed commitment devices improving the impact of savings interventions. Financial literacy and ﬁnancial education programmes for changing savings behaviours had no significant effect on poverty‐related outcomes. No strong or clear evidence was found for financial inclusion interventions enhancing entrepreneurship propensity. None of the meta‐studies presented evidence on behavioural outcomes that could be categorised as enabling higher‐order or final outcomes.6.3.8To help with the transition from descriptively synthesising the findings of the 11 medium‐ and high‐confidence reviews to discussing the implications of these findings for policy and practice, we draw on GRADE to structure the qualitative and quantitative evidence we highlighted in the sections above. Table Five  and for different people in different contexts. Findings across the meta‐studies were heterogeneous and often inconsistent, both within and across meta‐studies, and many did not find evidence of expected or presumed impacts.Financial services do have some impacts on poor people's lives, and these are more likely to be positive than negative. But the impacts vary, they are often mixed, and they appear not to be transformative in scope or scale. The effects tend to occur in the early stages of the causal chain.The effects of financial services on core economic poverty indicators such as incomes, assets or spending are small and inconsistent.The effects of participating in programmes that deliver financial services on women's empowerment appear to be generally positive, but they depend upon programme features , context , and on which aspects of empowerment are considered. The assessment of gender impacts is confounded by a difficulty of consistently conceptualising and measuring empowerment (across meta‐studies and across underlying studies).The effects of credit and other financial services on health status and other social outcomes appear to be small or non‐existent.There is no evidence for meaningful behaviour‐change outcomes leading to further positive effects.Accessing savings opportunities appears to have small but much more consistently positive effects for poor people, and logically and empirically entails fewer downside risks for clients than credit.Overall, we find:reporting of positive effects is not fully clear , due to their study design, poor reporting of methodology and other causes. Consequently, we have the choice, as Stewart et al. , p. 55 nn = 5) capturing only 76 effect sizes across 15 very diverse outcomes —and are hardly indicative of transformative changes from financial inclusion, as dominantly lower‐order outcomes are affected. Many effects are strongly heterogeneous, both across studies and over time, places, populations, gender and ethnicity as well as between interventionsLooking across the meta‐studies, almost all effect sizes are quite small—based on a small sample of meta‐analyses  examining the impact of financial inclusion interventions on a range of economic, social, gender and behavioural outcomes. After subjecting these to a quality appraisal process, we excluded 21 reviews due to quality concerns, leaving a core sample of 11 medium‐ and high‐confidence meta‐studies.As we can see from Table Financial services do have some impacts on poor people's lives, and these are more likely to be positive than negative. But the impacts vary, they are often mixed, and they appear not to be transformative in scope or scale. The effects tend to occur in the early stages of the causal chain.The effects of financial services on core economic poverty indicators such as incomes, assets or spending are small and inconsistent.The effects of participating in programmes that deliver financial services on women's empowerment appear to be generally positive, but they depend upon programme features , context , and on which aspects of empowerment are considered. The assessment of gender impacts is confounded by a difficulty of consistently conceptualising and measuring empowerment (across meta‐studies and across underlying studies).The effects of credit and other financial services on health status and other social outcomes appear to be small or nonexistent.There is no evidence for meaningful behaviour‐change outcomes leading to further positive effects.Accessing savings opportunities appears to have small but much more consistently positive effects for poor people, and logically and empirically entails fewer downside risks for clients than credit.In a nutshell, across these 11 medium and high confidence meta‐studies, we find:For the 21 excluded studies, due to the low confidence in their findings, we do not include the directions of reported outcomes in our synthesis. However, we would suggest that knowing the patterns of outcome reporting in these other studies can be useful for the design of future, higher‐confidence meta‐studies that complement the existing medium‐ and high‐quality evidence base. We note that the picture regarding types of outcomes reported is not very different for these low confidence studies as we can see from Table It is important to note, however, that the evidence base for both low and medium/high confidence studies is highly heterogeneous in terms of focusing on different intervention types, outcomes and geographies. As for the 11 medium and high confidence studies, many of the effects we find being reported positive, but often very small and occurring early on in the causal chain, which, if these meta‐studies had a higher confidence level, would similarly suggest a lack of long‐lasting and transformative changes.As discussed above, the results of our narrative synthesis of the effects reported in 11 meta‐studies raise the question whether financial inclusion interventions are the most appropriate way forward in terms of poverty alleviation compared to other, potentially more cost‐effective or impact‐generating alternatives. These could be, for instance, graduation or livelihoods programmes. We have also shared quality concerns in relation to the meta‐study and primary study evidence base, and discussed the implications of small sample bias, which further caution the reader to place too much faith in the small and positive effects that we can report from reviewing these meta‐studies.7.1.1Given the fragmented evidence base on the impact of financial inclusion interventions, it is worth considering the impact of potentially comparable alternatives, to understand whether there are alternatives with the potential to complement or to substitute financial inclusion activities in certain contexts. Hence, for comparison, we unsystematically (because a full systematic review of these would far exceed the scope of our review) sought to assemble a comparable evidence base of meta‐studies for livelihoods and graduation programmes. We argue that these interventions are comparable to financial inclusion interventions in terms of also having similar objectives of poverty alleviation and women's empowerment through directly working with poor people and seeking to increase their economic welfare and opportunities. However, livelihoods and graduation interventions often cast their net wider, in terms of the types of activities offered and overall outcomes that are targeted, and particularly livelihoods interventions are more heterogeneous. They also often do not have the same cost‐covering or profit‐making aims as financial inclusion activities.We embarked on this exercise by searching the same bibliographic databases we used to identify the financial inclusion studies; we also searched the website of BRAC, which we identified as the leading organisation for graduation programmes. We found 17 relevant meta‐studies (systematic and unsystematic reviews) and nine impact evaluations on livelihoods and graduation programmes. These can be found listed below, in the “References” section, under “Additional references”.Unsurprisingly, the reviews that we identified cover a wide brief in terms of intervention types  but also some quasi‐experiments, finding, similar to the reviews, positive (four studies), positive and mixed (two studies) and mixed impacts (three studies).It is important to note that we find high levels of heterogeneity within livelihood and graduation type of activities across the reviews and impact evaluations. Furthermore, context may very much drive the difference in effects. Geographically, the studies we identified were widely dispersed and the quality of the evidence also needs to be taken into consideration to be able to assess the reliability of their findings. However, examining these issues in greater depth is beyond the scope of this review. We concluded from this brief review that the picture is similarly mixed and heterogeneous for graduation and livelihood programmes. We also note that, at least in the case of graduation approaches, there is a clear evidence gap, with no meta‐study having yet been done.Our unsystematic and brief review of the livelihoods and graduation programmes only skims the surface of potential alternatives to financial inclusion interventions. It would also be worth exploring the cost effectiveness of financial inclusion interventions vis‐à‐vis livelihoods and graduation programmes or additional alternatives; but this may open up another “can of worms” altogether, which we cannot engage with here, and would first require similar levels of evidence synthesis between the interventions to have been attained.Going forward, it would be worth trying to grapple with the high levels of heterogeneity within livelihoods and graduation programmes to better understand what drives their impacts and how they may be best integrated with, or promoted instead of, financial inclusion interventions, to enhance and harness the limited impacts we observe in financial inclusion. There may also be other alternatives worth investigating, such as social safety net programmes.The point is that the alternative to financial inclusion is not “do nothing”, or to prioritise financial inclusion over the delivery of other services and forms of assistance, but rather to uncover what works best for whom and where, and how best to deliver it. Overall, a more open and clear‐sighted discussion in the policy and research space is needed on the many valid alternatives to financial inclusion programming and on how best to gain the necessary evidence to inform that discussion.7.2None of the meta‐studies we reviewed assessed debt levels or indebtedness patterns. While some reviews reflected in their discussion of results that expanded access to credit can lead to vicious cycles of debt , for example, water credit, sanitation loans, or loans for micro solar systems, which have grown rapidly in recent years. Especially the notion of “Green Microfinance”, where microfinance is applied to promote environmental sustainability moving beyond alleviating poverty and empowering women, has not been explored in any meta‐studies, even though this has been an area of growth increasingly receiving attention from policymakers. We also found no evidence for the claim that financial inclusion interventions lead to macroeconomic development and thus in turn improve the lives of the poor in low‐ and middle‐income countries. None of the studies in our sample , examined the causal link between the development of an inclusive financial sector and economic growth. It is best to abandon this assertion until reliable evidence is found.Given that the majority of financial inclusion impacts are found at the early stages of the causal chain .We found a lack of high‐confidence systematic reviews or meta‐analyses of (micro)insurance products, despite an underlying rigorous study base already existing. Stewart et al.  attempteDuring the in‐depth synthesis of the 11 medium‐ and high‐confidence meta‐studies, a number of evidence gaps became apparent, the largest of which we list below:7.3In Section 6.2, we extensively discussed the quality of the included meta‐studies as well as the quality of the primary evidence that informed the meta‐studies.At the level of meta‐studies, we had to discard, on quality grounds, from our in‐depth review two‐thirds of the studies that we had initially included. Our quality appraisal was rigorous, as we combined two reputable tools and had them applied independently by a group of RAs and the results checked by the lead review authors.We should note that the AMSTAR 2 tool and 3ie quality appraisal checklist suffer from a certain degree of residual subjectivity, and the results of applying them were contradictory in the case of a few studies. It is also important to point out that only because a meta‐study has been categorised as low confidence, this does not mean that it cannot substantially add meaningful evidence to the knowledge base on the impact of financial inclusion interventions; it means that it did not meet (or report on) the rather stringent technical and procedural requirements that would have made it a medium or high confidence systematic review or meta‐analysis according to AMSTAR 2 and the 3ie checklist.At the primary study level, 7 of the 11 medium‐ and high‐confidence meta‐studies stressed the often low quality of the evidence base they had included. Despite quality concerns, however, many low quality primary studies were included in the review process, which in turn raises concerns about the reliability of the overall findings presented in the meta‐studies we included, in particular where no mitigating actions were taken, for example, disaggregating the synthesis of findings by risk of bias level. As argued above, combining a wide range of low quality studies into systematic reviews is unhelpful and potentially risky; we would argue it is analogous to the repackaging of poor‐quality assets by financial institutions into larger‐volume triple A products as observed in the lead up to the 2008 financial crisis.7.4To our knowledge, we conducted the first systematic review of systematic reviews in the area of international development. As such, we did not find much guidance in the literature on how best to embark on such a review in this particular area of research. Hence, we adopted guidance from the Cochrane Collaboration, which is very focused on health‐related interventions, and we followed advice shared by Polanin et al.  in the cFollowing Cochrane guidance and Polanin et al. , we deveThe rigidity of the quality appraisal process that we followed, as per our protocol, led us to exclude from in‐depth analysis a number of meta‐studies that, using slightly different sets of criteria .7.5No conflict with other systematic reviews of reviews exist, as this is the first one on this topic.88.1We recognise, to follow Whitty , p. 3, tWe note that, fortunately, our findings regarding impact chime in with an emerging realism around microfinance, including in the donor community: recognising that erstwhile claims of transformative impact were unrealistic and that the hype for microfinance, particularly microcredit, was overblown. We welcome this newfound realism and wish to encourage it with the help of this review, in which we provided a systematic review of the evidence as well as the areas of doubt in the evidence base. At the same time, we wished that going through all stages of the hype cycle—enthusiasm, inflated expectations, and disillusionment—had not been necessary in order to arrive here. And lastly, we must warn that we see a similar hype of strong claims emerging around the much more encompassing notion of financial inclusion, with the promise of marrying macro‐structural economic improvements with micro‐structural poverty relief. Consequently, we chose “financial inclusion” rather than “microfinance” as the frame of this evidence review. We found no evidence for the wider claims made for the beneficence of financial inclusion, as offering poor people a better service, or as having broader macro‐structural effects, being any truer than those once made for microfinance, in large part due to a lack of appropriate research at the meta‐study level. We strongly caution against repeating the hype cycle, this time around the idea of financial inclusion.A rigorous assessment of the meta‐study evidence base on financial inclusion impacts led us to find impacts that often varied, and that were often more likely to be positive than negative but that also largely occurred in the early stages of the causal chain, which casts doubts onto their being transformative in nature, scope and/or scale. The impacts we found further along the causal chain, on indicators such as incomes or assets, were very small and not consistent across study samples and programmatic contexts or types of interventions. The effects of financial services on women's empowerment seem to be an exception, with generally positive impacts, but again, these impacts are small, often are related to non‐financial programme features, and are highly dependent on the aspects of empowerment under investigation. Also, they were often shaped by diverging views and methodologies regarding how to assess empowerment. Furthermore, quality concerns at the meta‐study as well as at the primary study level should further caution against reading too much into the findings of impacts that we report; major doubts remain about the confidence we can place in many meta‐study findings. In particular, the lack of consistent findings regarding enterprise growth and entrepreneurship propensity lends some credence to the turn away from focusing on microenterprise promotion in financial inclusion. One promising aspect we discovered, however, relates to accessing savings opportunities. The effects may be small, but they are more consistently positive than some of the other effects we found, with fewer downside risks for the users than from credit products. Savings does some good and little harm.8.2We have taken the evolution of the financial inclusion impact literature toward a natural conclusion, with a higher level of evidence systematisation, to provide an overview of what has become an increasingly perplexing array of meta‐studies that each offer partial overviews. By reviewing these reviews, we have drawn on what is likely the largest‐ever evidence base on financial inclusion impacts, and have uncovered strengths, gaps and weaknesses of the existing high‐level evidence.From this review, the (perhaps boring) truth that seems to emerge about financial inclusion is that it is not changing the world. On average, financial services may not even have a meaningful net positive effect on poor or low‐income users, although some services have some positive effects for some people. Considering that for most people financial inclusion  will be only one among many possible determinants of their life chances and their socio‐economic well‐being, this finding ought not to be unexpected, and we anticipate that it will be confirmed by future research. Our findings add to an emerging realism about microfinance, which we hope will soon extend to the presently more inflated expectations for financial inclusion.In terms of evidence gaps, it is noteworthy that none of the meta‐studies we reviewed  managed to assess debt levels or indebtedness patterns in depth as an outcome of financial inclusion. While we cannot comment on the precise reasons for the lack of attention paid to the issue, we are aware of it being a blind spot of the underlying primary studies. We find this to be a glaring omission of the financial inclusion literature as a whole, and argue the political economy of research funding needs to shift such that researchers are enabled and encouraged to more rigorously explore the most important downsides and risks of development initiatives like financial inclusion. Furthermore, we found no evidence  for the claim that financial inclusion interventions lead to macroeconomic development and subsequent improvements in the lives of the poor. This may be because the argument has only become prominent in recent years. There is also not much attention given  to service/amenities‐related programmes such as water credit, sanitation loans, or loans for micro solar systems, especially the notion of “Green Microfinance” where microfinance is applied to promote environmental sustainability.Given that the majority of financial inclusion impacts we found in assessing the high‐ and medium‐confidence studies were at the early stages of the causal chain, there is a need for studies to better capture long‐term effects and demonstrate more meaningful impacts, especially at the final stages of the causal chain. The vast majority of the studies that our meta‐studies had reviewed had a duration of 1–3 years. These studies are likelier to find changes in behaviours or attitudes rather than structural changes to people's poverty status, and it is not safe to assume that the latter will result from the former. The design of most studies underlying the meta‐studies that we reviewed has not been conducive to establishing whether short‐term or immediate outcomes  would translate into intermediate outcomes (such as savings accumulation or microenterprise income) and especially more distal, transformative outcomes (higher net worth or higher incomes). We would suggest that this also reflects a problem of the political economy of development research: a combination of funder restrictions (favouring shorter timelines over multi‐year projects) and a difficulty of gaining long‐term support from the implementer organisations.Finally, we only found meta‐study ; analysing effect sizes that are presented in standardised and indexed form, which often reveal little about the underlying measures used  and clearer reporting standards that adapt the Cochrane health‐focused guidance to the social science and international development context would be helpful.8.3Content: Maren Duvendack, Philip MaderSystematic review methods: Maren Duvendack, John Eyers (search strategy)Statistical analysis: Maren Duvendack, Philip Mader, Daniela Anda LeonInformation retrieval: John Eyers, Ada SonnenfeldInitial inclusion screening: Ada Sonnenfeld and Raj PopatData extraction: Ada Sonnenfeld, Daniela Anda Leon, Esther WinslowOverlap matrices: Miriam Berretta9The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) is funding this work.10Maren Duvendack was lead author on one systematic review  financial inclusion impact evidence in early 2017 for a consultancy (unpublished).Neither author has any professional affiliation with or received research funding from organisations engaged in financial inclusion activities.11Ideally, this review should be updated every five years to include new systematic reviews and meta‐analyses on financial inclusion. However, regular updates are subject to availability of funding.Supporting informationClick here for additional data file.


Emily McBride and Joseph Chilcot conceived and drafted the article. All authors contributed to the final version and approved the submission.The COVID‐19 pandemic has led to substantial changes in population behaviour and health‐related outcomes. Approximately 10% of people who test positive for COVID‐19 experience long‐term health effects lasting for more than 12 weeks post‐infection, including persistent physical, neuropsychological, and mental health‐related symptoms  and enacting risk behaviours (such as tobacco use) were estimated to account for up to 40% of the determinants of premature mortality , have posed significant barriers to engaging with health promoting behaviours, as has the impact of poorer physical and mental health. Based on UK risk factor prevalence estimates, the combined impact of physical inactivity, smoking, and obesity accounted for up to 51% of the population attributable fraction of severe COVID‐19  to receive a COVID‐19 vaccine  reported drinking more alcohol through COVID‐19 than normal  groups, as well as women and others with caring responsibilities (Chadeau‐Hyam et al., Overall, the pandemic has been associated with adverse population trends across most health behaviours, as well as poorer mental health and well‐being outcomes. Although these trends are so far preliminary, the UK Government and international bodies anticipate long‐term systemic health and economic effects, far beyond the direct effects of COVID‐19 (UK Government, Evidence from the existing health psychology and behavioural science literature can be used as a foundation and springboard to inform interventions and translate them into the COVID‐19 context. For example, already there have been systematic reviews on effective messaging which encourages vaccination uptake (Lawes‐Wickwar et al., Importantly, in tandem with evidence‐based practice, nationally recommended inclusivity and diversity frameworks such as ‘The INCLUDE Ethnicity Framework’ should be used to guide research design and intervention testing . GuideliLong‐term disease prevention and detection strategies should be prioritized now that most of the UK have been living under policy restrictions for over a year, and the COVID‐19 vaccine is rolling out nationally. Cost‐effective and evidence‐based interventions that support the uptake of healthy behaviours and promote engagement with preventative health services are needed to offset indirect consequences of COVID‐19 on disease prevention and mental well‐being. Emphasis should be placed on ensuring future research and intervention development align to meet the needs of high‐risk groups and underserved populations, to help reduce widening health and social inequalities.