Silver lining from COVID? Women around the world got access to digital payments

There are few silver linings from the pandemic, but for Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman, one of them is "a massive expansion of social payments to women across the world." Women traditionally excluded from such systems in countries like Kenya or Pakistan, he says, finally got online — with immense potential to set up businesses for instance in agriculture. These are the "green shoots that we need to collectively build on" so after COVID we get a "faster, more effective, and more equitable recovery for the entire world."

He spoke during "Measuring what matters: How women are critical to pandemic recovery," a livestream conversation on October 28, 2021, hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.