Forecasting system for Ethiopia's financial inclusion using time series methods
# Ethiopia Financial Inclusion Forecasting
## Business Problem
A consortium of development finance institutions, mobile money operators (Telebirr, M-Pesa), and the National Bank of Ethiopia needs to understand and predict the trajectory of financial inclusion in Ethiopia. Despite a massive expansion of mobile money—Telebirr surpassing 54 million users and M-Pesa reaching over 10 million—formal account ownership only grew from 46% (2021) to 49% (2024). This slowdown raises critical questions:
- What factors drive (or hinder) financial inclusion in Ethiopia?
- How do specific events—policy changes, product launches, infrastructure investments—affect inclusion indicators?
- What will account ownership and digital payment usage look like in 2025–2027?
The consortium needs data‑driven insights to guide investments, policy, and product strategies.
## Solution Overview
We developed an end‑to‑end forecasting system that:
- **Enriches** the provided unified dataset with additional observations (e.g., gender‑disaggregated Findex data, infrastructure metrics) and events (regulatory changes, new market entries).
- **Models** the impact of events using an association matrix derived from `impact_link` records and comparable country evidence.
- **Forecasts** two core Global Findex indicators:
- **Access** – Account ownership rate (% of adults)
- **Usage** – Digital payment adoption rate (% of adults)
- For the years 2025–2027, with uncertainty bounds.
- **Presents** results through an interactive Streamlit dashboard that allows stakeholders to explore trends, event impacts, and scenarios.
## Key Results
- **Account ownership** is projected to reach **52–55% by 2027** under a base scenario (up from 49% in 2024). The optimistic scenario, incorporating stronger mobile money adoption, could push it to 58%.
- **Digital payment usage** is forecasted to rise to **40–45% by 2027**, driven by continued expansion of agent networks and interoperability …