Financial Education Seminar for Sub-Saharan Africa

Financial education has been hailed as a key tool in empowering citizens and driving national development objectives. This is the underlying theme that emerged at the Seminar on Financial Education: Challenges, Trends and Measures of Success in Supporting Financial Inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa, organised by the Access to Insurance Initiative (A2II) and the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) in collaboration with the Financial Services Board (FSB) and FinMark Trust in Sandton, South Africa on 29-30 September 2016.

The seminar brought together over 150 delegates from 15 African countries and beyond. Participants represented a cross-section of stakeholders involved in financial education, including government ministries; central banks and regulators; industry associations; academia and a range of international organisations and NGOs. Delegates engaged with a wide array of speakers who provided insights from empirical research as well as lessons learnt through practical implementation.

Topics covered included national strategies, consumer protection, best practices, the business case for financial education and measuring impact. Throughout the course of the two days, a number of emerging and sometimes controversial issues were also discussed, including the use of digital technologies, how to affect behavioral change and the fine line between financial education and marketing.
The discussions showed that challenges in financial education are similar across sub-Saharan Africa and that important lessons could therefore be learned from existing experiences. The Seminar reinforced that financial education is an integral part of financial inclusion and to be successful it must:

Receive support from senior leadership in national Governments
Be a coordinated effort involving all stakeholders in the financial sector
Focus on the needs of the consumer and be targeted to the audience
Integrate monitoring and evaluation and learn from the results.

The outcomes of the seminar will inform a Global Declaration on Financial Literacy, which is currently being considered by the OECD International Network on Financial Education (OECD/INFE) to encourage cross-border sharing of ideas and best practices, as well as the collection of related data and evidence to support the development and implementation of effective financial education policies.