Guidebook to Digital Inclusion Bond Financing

The Guidebook to Digital Inclusion Bond Financing outlines how to leverage social finance to bridge the digital divide. It defines digital inclusion financing arrangements as tools that provide incentives and funding for activities supporting digital access, affordability, and skills. The document details the creation of a digital inclusion financing framework, compares bond versus bank financing, and provides specific examples of projects and key performance indicators (KPIs) across broadband access, healthcare, education, and financial inclusion. It emphasizes the importance of transparency and external review to avoid 'social washing' and 'SDG-washing'.

• Digital inclusion financing arrangements are a subset of sustainable and social financing that provide issuers or borrowers with funding and incentives for activities specifically supporting digital inclusion, allowing them to address global digital inequality while meeting business needs.
• There are two primary options for digital inclusion financing: bond financing, which allows raising capital from the open market and often offers longer tenures (10 to 20 years), and bank financing, which involves loan agreements that may be more accessible for smaller entities and offer more flexibility in reporting.
• To ensure credibility and avoid 'social washing' or 'SDG-washing', entities should adopt a formal digital inclusion financing framework that outlines their approach, use of proceeds or KPIs, project selection processes, management of proceeds, reporting obligations, and external review processes.
• Effective digital inclusion projects and KPIs must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART), and should ideally be measured using established industry methodologies to ensure objectivity.
• Broadband access is identified as a basic necessity for economic and human development, with critical challenges remaining in expanding access to rural areas and populations in developing countries.
• Digital inclusion financing can be applied to healthcare through telemedicine and telehealth, which are particularly beneficial for under-served communities in developing countries.
• In education, digital inclusion financing can address gaps in access to computers and internet, which were highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic when UNESCO found that 50% of students unable to attend in-person classes lacked a computer.
• Financial inclusion efforts target the 1.7 billion unbanked adults globally, focusing on digital financial literacy—the combination of digital and financial literacy—to improve the usage of financial products.
• The document highlights several real-world examples of such financing, including Millicom International's sustainability bond for network expansion, the African Development Bank's social bond for last-mile connectivity in Africa, and Mexico's SDG Sovereign Bond for education infrastructure.

APA

World Economic Forum (2021). Guidebook to Digital Inclusion Bond Financing. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Guideboo_to_Digital_Inclusion_Bond_Financing.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Guidebook to Digital Inclusion Bond Financing. 2021. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Guideboo_to_Digital_Inclusion_Bond_Financing.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Guidebook to Digital Inclusion Bond Financing |date=September 2021 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Guideboo_to_Digital_Inclusion_Bond_Financing.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2021guidebook, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Guidebook to Digital Inclusion Bond Financing}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2021}, month = sep, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Guideboo_to_Digital_Inclusion_Bond_Financing.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }