Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala – WTO director general – reportedly believed that blockchain could offer many advantages to unbanked and underbanked females throughout the globe. 

Specifically, during the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, regulators and policy makers have come across a question, regarding the way blockchain can offer availability and equality of opportunities to access financial services to women, during the pandemic time and beyond. 

Okonjo-Iweala, former foreign and finance minister of Nigeria who was a co-chair on the panel – was reportedly the sole individual, among different members from the US and Singapore, to offer her remarks addressing the question. 

She reportedly claimed that blockchain provides obvious transparency to the way business is conducted, as well as eliminating the involvement of intermediaries.

“I think that particularly in the finance area the ability to introduce this into transactions, I think could be particularly beneficial to women who are often excluded from access to finance. I think this is a good thing, something we should look into.”

Individuals of the feminine gender in different nations often encounter difficulties regarding tapping into financial services compared to the other gender. 

Numerous professionals mentioned crypto and blockchain as viable measures to achieve financial inclusion, in different sectors that have insufficient infrastructure, compared to the ones in developed nations, especially where women potentially encounter long travel times to connect with credit providers, as well as restrictions in registering a bank account.

“E-commerce conducted through online platforms can be an easy and inexpensive way for women to trade globally, to enter new foreign markets, to expand their businesses and to harness their entrepreneurship.” The WTO referred to digital solutions, when it comes to empowering the economy for women, within its scope of the plan for producing more wealth and bringing down poverty.