Savings is Love - BCC Videos Targeting Increase in Digital and Financial Literacy in Refugee Camps in Tanzania
Summary:
UNCDF offers last mile finance models to reduce poverty and support local economic development. To reach the last mile where available resources are scarcest and market failures are most pronounced, UNCDF Tanzania partnered in 2018 with media specialists KRM and PVI to produce a series of BCC videos focused on building digital and financial literacy for refugees and host communities in the Kigoma Region to:
An end-line study in July 2019 comparing 689 refugees and host community members in Tanzania, comparing those who had participated in the UNCDF and partner intervention suggests positive results from the approach adopted during this partnership. For example, participants in the financial literacy interventions were 20% more likely to be able to identify trustworthy mobile money agents (a key indicator for consumer protection), almost 50% more likely to be able to use mobile money independently, 45% more likely to be able to set a plan to meet a savings goal, and almost 40% more likely to report feeling more financially secure than they did six months ago. These results were similar among both women and men.
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
This project has broader implications for practitioners of SBCC. It demonstrates that distribution mechanisms exist that are more affordable and more impactful, when practitioners begin their campaign by learning what media their audience enjoys consuming, and what infrastructure for media consumption already exists and is popular. This allows a campaign to reach beyond usual suspects reached by workshop-style interventions and spread information to a broader audience in a manner that is more engaging. Through collaboration between entities in this case a service provider, an advertising agency, and an NGO media strategist these opportunities can be located and utilized.
Abstract submitted by:
Jessica Massie - UNCDF
Gosia Lukomska - Peripheral Vision International (PVI)
UNCDF offers last mile finance models to reduce poverty and support local economic development. To reach the last mile where available resources are scarcest and market failures are most pronounced, UNCDF Tanzania partnered in 2018 with media specialists KRM and PVI to produce a series of BCC videos focused on building digital and financial literacy for refugees and host communities in the Kigoma Region to:
- Increase knowledge on savings and savings groups, managing money, mobile money and digital solutions
- Increase uptake of already available financial services and solutions
- Increase awareness about consumer rights related to financial services
An end-line study in July 2019 comparing 689 refugees and host community members in Tanzania, comparing those who had participated in the UNCDF and partner intervention suggests positive results from the approach adopted during this partnership. For example, participants in the financial literacy interventions were 20% more likely to be able to identify trustworthy mobile money agents (a key indicator for consumer protection), almost 50% more likely to be able to use mobile money independently, 45% more likely to be able to set a plan to meet a savings goal, and almost 40% more likely to report feeling more financially secure than they did six months ago. These results were similar among both women and men.
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
This project has broader implications for practitioners of SBCC. It demonstrates that distribution mechanisms exist that are more affordable and more impactful, when practitioners begin their campaign by learning what media their audience enjoys consuming, and what infrastructure for media consumption already exists and is popular. This allows a campaign to reach beyond usual suspects reached by workshop-style interventions and spread information to a broader audience in a manner that is more engaging. Through collaboration between entities in this case a service provider, an advertising agency, and an NGO media strategist these opportunities can be located and utilized.
Abstract submitted by:
Jessica Massie - UNCDF
Gosia Lukomska - Peripheral Vision International (PVI)
Source
Approved abstract for the postponed 2020 SBCC Summit in Marrakech, Morocco. Provided by the International Steering Committee for the Summit. Image credit: UNCDF