This is the second part of a two-part blog series about creating effective financial literacy campaigns in microfinance.
Contents of financial literacy campaigns/trainings
The broad aim of financial literacy is to “help people to plan accordingly so they are prepared for the periods of cash deficits” according to the Grameen Foundation Blog, and imparting basic information about a variety of financial topics can help serve this end. Some common topics that can be included in the content of financial literacy campaigns are as follows:
- Financial planning, budgeting, strategic investments
- Understanding interest rates
- Good business practices
- Savings and credit management; managing credit profile
- Fraud prevention
- Traditional (savings and checking accounts) and branchless banking
- Money management tools (debit cards, checkbooks, microfinance services)
- Tracking personal and business expenses/income (financial statements)
This is not an exhaustive list of topics, and financial literacy campaigns may cover simply one or two of the above, depending on the level of awareness they wish to create.
Pricing and Target Audience of Financial Literacy Training Sessions
Pricing: Ideally, financial information should be disseminated for free, however, that may not be a good enough incentive to draw a large audience (people may be unwilling to forego income by ceasing work activities in order to attend a seminar or training). One way to avoid this situation is to offer ‘small financial incentives’ to boost attendance and retention of information learned, as pointed out by a World Bank Blog.
Target audience: Generally, the unbanked population with some level of access to microfinance services should be targeted to maximize the effectiveness of these trainings; however, any of the following criteria may be used:
- Urban, rural populations;
- young or middle-aged individuals with little financial knowledge
- School-going (training may be integrated with course curriculum) or non-school going population
