Staff Directory

Antonique Koning

Senior Financial Sector Specialist

Antonique Koning leads CGAP’s work on Women’s Economic Empowerment through financial inclusion and manages the Access to Insurance Initiative (A2ii) convened by CGAP. She has more than 25 years of experience working on inclusive finance and has expertise in gender norms affecting women’s financial inclusion, young women’s financial inclusion, responsible finance and customer centricity.  Antonique also led CGAP’s work on customer outcomes-based approaches to consumer protection regulation and supervision, and  contributed to guidance on customer empowerment and employee and agent empowerment for CGAP’s Customer Centric Guide for which she authored a case study on Pioneer Microinsurance.  

Before joining CGAP in 2004, Antonique gained hands-on experience developing and implementing microcredit programs in El Salvador and working with savings banks globally. 

She has a Master’s degree in International Trade Management and Policy from the University of Birmingham, and a Master’s degree in Applied Economics from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Antonique is based in Belgium, and speaks Spanish, French, and Dutch.

By Antonique Koning

Blog

What Policies Make Finance Work for Africa’s Smallholder Farmers?

In some African countries as much as 80% of the population is employed in the agricultural sector. Even so, these countries need improved productivity and access to financial services to ensure food security and reach their potential. So, what policies can support innovative finance that reaches smallholder farmers?
Blog

Aspirations for Financial Inclusion in Africa

Globally Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains the region with the largest portion of people excluded from formal financial services. Only 12 percent of adults have a bank account, and the situation is most dire in rural areas where the large majority of the 863 million people in Africa live.
Research

The Role of Funders in Responsible Finance

This Brief addresses the recent movement toward responsible finance, which has shaped the industry's belief that financial service providers have a responsibility to deliver financial services in a way that is transparent, fair, safe, and likely to generate benefits for poor clients.
Blog

Making Finance More Responsible

If you ask social investors whether responsible finance should be the “new normal” in microfinance, the answer is always yes.
Research

Responsible Finance: Putting Principles to Work

This paper defines what we mean by responsible finance, both as an end-state vision and in terms of a pragmatic focus on client protection and social performance management.