In order to increase financial literacy campaign in Afghanistan, we worked with OXUS Afghanistan to train over 7,000 borrowers in areas of savings, budgeting, investing and debt management.
An on-the-ground financial literacy needs assessment was conducted at start of the project. This needs assessment consisted of visits to ten OXUS Afghanistan (OXUS) branches in Kabul, during which meetings were held with 40 OXUS staff members and 23 OXUS clients. Two questionnaires (one for OXUS staff and one for OXUS clients) were developed prior to the meetings in order to ensure the consistency (and therefore usability) of data gathered during the needs assessment. These questionnaires were specifically designed to gather general demographic information, financial information (including current attitudes and behaviours towards budgeting, savings, debt management and investing), FE priorities and preferred learning methods.
As a result of these meetings, five areas were identified for inclusion into the FE program for this project: (1) expense management, (2) savings, (3) budgeting, (4) loan management and (5) business planning. It was also determined that animated videos in the local languages of Dari and Pashto would best engage target clients for the FE program as well as best communicate key messages on a wide scale.
