Community forum: Enhancing financial literacy - a complementary approach

Posted on 14 Aug 2008 by Bruce

Just thinking out loud with this post so please excuse me if it seems rather sketchy. Much of the discussion in the forum is about improving income streams in isolated communities, but there is a complementary approach. That is about helping communities do more/better with the income/assets they have, and avoiding threats to what they already have (for eg) of entering into unnecessary debt, gambling, etc.

This approach would be educational and aimed at both children and adults and would aim to improve understanding of basic financial planning concepts such as personal budgeting, investing and saving, legal agreements. Clearly this would have to be at a basic and practical level, and tailored to the community.

In Thailand financial planning is in its infancy but there is now specialist training and licensing of professionals. The aim would be to approach the relevant bodies with a view to enlisting educational institutions, students and professional bodies to develop a pilot program to implement in the mountain communities of northern Thailand.

I could readily expand on this proposal, but will leave it here for the time being and welcome any feedback.

A couple of possible funding sources relevant to an Asian application of this concept (and possibly elsewhere) are:

1. Citibank. Regional office is Hong Kong. Citibank does have a funding scheme for projects related to improving financial literacy. Mind you, the current global economic turmoil might have turned off this source for the time being.
2. Australian embassy Bangokok - Discretionary grant funds http://www.austembassy.or.th/bkok/DAP0708.html

- Bruce