An enumerator engages an entrepreneur during field data collection.
One of the easiest mistakes in financial inclusion work is to assume that access tells the whole story. On paper, the categories are neat. A person is included or excluded, banked or unbanked, a borrower or a non-borrower. A business has accessed credit, or it has not. But in the field, those distinctions quickly become harder to hold. Finance is rarely experienced as a clean policy label. It is experienced as timing, pressure, trust, embarrassment, aspiration, negotiation, and sometimes fear.
Over the past several months, I have been supervising fieldwork for an EFInA-supported research study on how productive credit impacts financial resilience, enterprise growth, and welfare among microenterprises in Nigeria. The study surveyed microentrepreneurs across Lagos, Kano, Anambra, and Borno, four states selected because they represent different economic realities within Nigeria’s enterprise landscape. Lagos offered the density of a commercial and fintech hub. Kano reflected the depth of northern mercantile trade, shaped strongly by religion, trust, and informal networks. Anambra brought the logic of trade, apprenticeship, market discipline, and supplier relationships. Borno offered a different lens entirely, one of resilience, recovery, and enterprise activity in a post-conflict context.
