Mike McCaffrey

Mike McCaffrey is the Global Lead for MSME Finance at the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). He is an inclusive finance practitioner whose career reflects the evolution of the financial inclusion sector, from early microcredit to digital finance and blended finance solutions that expand access to capital for micro, small, and medium-sized (MSME) enterprises. Mike earned his master’s degree from Princeton University.

He leads UNCDF’s global MSME finance agenda, structuring last mile and blended finance initiatives that deploy catalytic capital to crowd in private investment and expand sustainable lending to small businesses in the world’s least developed and frontier markets. More recently, Mike has focused on productive finance, ensuring that digital financial inclusion translates into growth capital for businesses, and leading major UNCDF initiatives such as the Inclusive Digital Economies programming and the FinWise MSME finance programme in East and Southern Africa.

Mike began his development career as a Peace Corps microenterprise volunteer working on microcredit programmes in Bolivia. He went on to lead financial inclusion and digital finance programmes across more than 25 emerging market countries in Africa, Asia, and other frontier markets. As the sector shifted toward digital financial services, he played a leading role in advancing mobile money and digital finance ecosystems across East Africa and South Asia, including founding the Helix Institute of Digital Finance, which trained banking and telecommunications leaders to build mass-market financial services for underserved populations.