About the Project
What is the Digital Portfolios of the Poor (DPP)?
Digital Portfolios of the Poor is a research project designed to understand the gendered differences in digital lives of the poor, enabling us to act more quickly to close gender gaps and to design and create gender-transformative digital products. DPP leverages high-powered, scalable and low-cost research methods to gather a 360 degree view into the digital lives of vulnerable people – particularly women – in India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Kenya.
Insights from the DPP have the potential to improve the effectiveness of products developed by digital financial services providers, as well as the overall digital enabling environment, for the world's most vulnerable populations. The DPP's innovative research method gives people the space to talk in their own language or dialect, gathering voices in detail and at scale.
Why does DPP matter?
The results from this Project will inform the design and delivery of education efforts to engage low-income people, especially women, about how to manage their data privacy and risks. Further, they will provide evidence for policymakers to structure balanced policies that protect low-income people, yet enable appropriate digital financial services, especially for women.
Who are the poor?
According to the first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 1), the poor are men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions. For the purpose of this research, we consider the poor to be people economically vulnerable who struggle to have access to basic services.
Who is behind DPP?
This project is generously funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and managed by Decodis, a social research company, in partnership with the Henry J. Leir Institute for Migration and Human Security and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. We also have field partners who are key to making this project possible.
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