The financial systems change wheel was developed to help the Feed the Future Nguriza Nshore staff track a more comprehensive set of factors influencing how the financial service market systems functions. Through the use of the wheel, the Nguriza Nshore team has been able to see how the EDP’s implementation is more important for increasing the inclusive growth potential of entrepreneurship in Rwanda than having a perfect written policy that never gets implemented effectively. Further, the wheel is helping the Nguriza Nshore team see how changing the banking and microfinance services also entails other interconnected systems. The wheel is also helping the Nguriza Nshore team track its progress towards systemic change.
Feed the Future Rwanda Nguriza Nshore (Nguriza Nshore), a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has been grounded in systems thinking from the start. The three project components, for example, are also interconnected and interdependent. Credit based finance is important, but not sufficient to catalyze a growing inclusive economy, so mobilizing private capital is also essential. At the same time, bank finance and private capital cannot effectively allocate financial resources if the rule of law and policy environment remain uncertain or highly biased against clear, consistent, and transparent rules of the game.
The Nguriza Nshore team realized the importance of the interconnectedness but did not have a way to define and highlight interconnectedness. As a result, the team, in concert with EcoVentures International, developed a financial services system change wheel (finance wheel). Based on the agricultural market system change wheel published by USAID, the finance wheel provides a graphic representation of the system and its interconnectedness. The team is using the tool to track their activities against wider systemic forces and dynamics allowing the team to adapt more effectively to emergent threats and opportunities. The finance wheel also provides a normative pathway to self-reliance that the team can use to gauge where momentum is growing and where change has stalled or needs more support. The combination of defining interconnectedness and a normative pathway gives the team an important tool in managing how best to work in and across their components.
View a draft of the Financial Services Market Systems Change Wheel below.