Themes
Leverage Teachable Moments
Trainings should be coupled with “teachable moments”. These are moments when training will make the most impact on a user including when: a) they open their account, b) receive their first payment, and/or c) make their first payment, or other milestones (e.g., pregnancy, childbirth, or family death.)
Training Delivery from Trusted Leaders and Peers
Trainings should be coupled with “teachable moments”. These are moments when training will make the most impact on a user including when: a) they open their account, b) receive their first payment, and/or c) make their first payment, or other milestones (e.g., pregnancy, childbirth, or family death.)
Training Content Must be Relevant
Content must reflect the range of beneficiary needs and literacy capabilities as well as the current information on products and services. A “cookie cutter approach” should be avoided – content from one market or user may not be appropriate for another. However, lessons learned and successful experiences in country should be referenced and leveraged.
Use a Range of Channels to Deliver the Content and Avoid Lectures
Lectures should be avoided and training should leverage multiple delivery channels. These can include face-to-face trainings, videos, skits, debates, and others. Content should focus on “learn by doing” when possible and should leverage teachable moments.
Repeat Messaging
The curriculum should repeat messages in different ways through different medium throughout the life of the financial capability effort. Reinforcement in this way can help cement ideas for individuals with different learning styles at critical teachable moments.
Diverse set of products/services
The curriculum should focus on diverse financial products and services available in the market and not just one product.
Collaborate with DFSPs
Collaboration with providers can help ensure that women continue to use services after sign-up; examples could include incentives, experiments, and data tracking.
Target Women MSMEs
When appropriate, ensure training is also suitable and tailored for women MSMEs. This would also include relevant use cases and teachable moments for nascent or growing businesses, opportunities for mentorship and networking. This can also include women that are being trained as DFS Agents to compliment disbursement activities of G2P, B2P or other relevant use cases.
Childcare Provision & Flexibility
Lack of childcare can preclude participation on many education programs for women. By either providing childcare or designing programs near participants’ homes with some flexibility increases the chanced of them participating. If transport is required, payment for it as well as beneficiary time should be incorporated into the program.
Engage Gatekeepers
Social norms may preclude women from participating in financial capability campaigns. Programs and communications should actively engage relevant household, community, and government gatekeepers to promote the socially acceptable use of digital payments.
Risks of Inadequate Financial Capability Efforts
- If financial capability efforts are not coupled with first-time disbursements, women may cash out and not use their account nor the other financial services/products availed to them.
- If campaigns do not take a capability approach, (leverage teachable moments, use multiple delivery channels, build on progress of past successes), women may not retain digital or financial literacy skills and may not feel motivated to seek out additional support.
- If financial capability efforts do not leverage trusted leaders, peers and women as facilitators of trainings, women may feel uncomfortable with male or unknown individuals delivering trainings. As a result, they may not attend.
- If financial capability efforts do not tailor the location of training to be close to beneficiaries and offer childcare, women will not be able to attend as their mobility is often limited because of childcare duties.
The guidance in the preceding content draws on the following comprehensive guides developed by the World Bank and GSMA:
- Integrating Financial Capability into Government Cash Transfer Programs, World Bank[1]
- Next Generation G2P Payments: Building Blocks of a Modern G2P Architecture, World Bank[2]
- The State of Economic Inclusion Report 2021: The Potential to Scale, World Bank[3]
- The Digital Financial Literacy Toolkit: Addressing the Gap in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, GSMA[4]
[1] “Integrating Financial Capability into Government Cash Transfer Programs,” World Bank, July 2018, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/1a6548c3-5630-539c-9dab-33823af6e2d9.
[2] “Next Generation G2P Payments: Building Blocks of a Modern G2P Architecture,” World Bank, October 19, 2022, https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/099600110202238143/p173166068e4220430a0ff03279b01c83db.
[3] Colin Andrews, Aude de Montesquiou, Inés Arévalo Sánchez, Puja Vasudeva Dutta, Boban Varghese Paul, Sadna Samaranayake, Janet Heisey, Timothy Clay, and Sarang Chaudhary, “The State of Economic Inclusion Report 2021: The Potential to Scale,” World Bank, January 26, 2021, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/33e62d47-7ba8-5d38-ae09-48f1daf3607d/content.
[4] “The Digital Financial Literacy Toolkit: Addressing the Gap in Low- and Middle-Income Countries,” GSMA, March 23, 2023, https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/connectivity-for-good/mobile-for-development/gsma_resources/the-digital-financial-literacy-toolkit-addressing-the-gap-in-low-and-middle-income-countries/.