Global Money Week March 25-31, 2019

EFInA, with support of the Central Bank of Nigeria, participated in the Global Money Week (GMW) – an annual international financial awareness campaign, aimed at inspiring children and young adults to learn about money matters, livelihoods and entrepreneurship. EFInA, however, channeled more effort to its focus areas: North, Women and Youth and incorporated Senior Secondary School students. The campaign held in two Northern States: Kano & Gombe. The choice of these states was premised on the outcome of the EFInA Access to Financial Services (A2F) 2018 survey findings which revealed that Kano state in North West and Gombe State in North East have the highest exclusion rates at 75.2% and 76.1% respectively.

Activities ran concurrently in both states and were targeted at In-School: Senior Secondary School students (SS3) and Out of School: Corps Members, Cooperatives/Associations: Market Women, Transporters, and Farmers. The activities conducted included:

• Excursion to banks/MFBs
• Quiz, Debate & School Mentoring Programme
• Radio Programme
• Sensitization for Corps Members on Global Money Week and Financial Literacy
• Global Money Walk & Market Storm

 Excursion: About 70 Senior Secondary School students in Kano and Gombe states were taken round banking premises and learned about functions of staff, different banking products and services. It was the first banking experience for most of the students. There was positive reaction and feedback from the students who were enthusiastic, asked a lot of questions and were eager to commence saving in the bank.

Quiz/Debate and School Mentoring Programme: 200 students participated in the school mentoring session across four schools in Kano and Gombe states. The mentoring sessions were facilitated by a representative of Junior Achievement Nigeria, CBN, and some financial institutions, including mobile money operators. The quiz tested the students’ knowledge on business management, finance, savings, investments etc while the topic of the debate was “The use of financial institutions is better than the use of the old conventional method (saving at home or with friends and relatives)”.

Sensitization of NYSC Members: About 370 serving corpers were sensitised on financial literacy, financial inclusion, and essence of Global Money Week. They were also introduced to financial products and services of institutions that facilitated the session. Some of the facilitators included: LAPO, Teasy Mobile, Fidelity Bank and Guarantee Trust Bank. A major lesson learned is that corpers were able to distinguish needs from wants and better understand the importance of saving.

Global Money Walk and Market Storm: About 800 traders, members of associations, youth and farmers participated in the Global Money Walk and Market storm across the two states. They were educated on the objective of the programme, about EFInA, about the importance of saving, about financial products and being financially included. The financial institutions and mobile money operators present also sensitized the marketers about their products and services and encouraged participants to open accounts and become agents.

The Global Money Week event provided a platform to communicate the benefits of financial literacy; inculcate savings and financial management culture; encourage the uptake of financial products and services and ensure that beneficiaries are better equipped to make optimal choices in the use of financial products.

The exercise and feedback revealed that while beneficiaries were receptive and eager to learn about how to improve their finances; a lot more work is required from stakeholders to educate the excluded population as many seem to be lacking adequate knowledge of financial management. It also revealed that cultural and religious factors are major inhibitors to Northern Nigerian women being financially included and more likely to rely only on informal financial services. Nevertheless, the campaign served as a stepping stone to driving financial inclusion through financial literacy.