Decentralized Delivery of Financial Education : Evidence from a Country-Wide Field Experiment
Can financial education delivery be successfully decentralized? This paper studies a large-scale field experiment with 200 Savings and Credit Cooperative Associations (SACCOs) in Rwanda, and tests competing models of local financial education deliv...
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/757641531332170199/Decentralized-delivery-of-financial-education-evidence-from-a-country-wide-field-experiment http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29994 |
| Summary: | Can financial education delivery be
successfully decentralized? This paper studies a large-scale
field experiment with 200 Savings and Credit Cooperative
Associations (SACCOs) in Rwanda, and tests competing models
of local financial education delivery. One-third of SACCOs,
randomly selected, were invited to a comprehensive
training-of-trainers (TOT) workshop and stipulated to send
the SACCO manager, a loan officer, and a board member to be
trained. Another one-third were invited to the same
workshop, but allowed free selection of trainers. The latter
resulted in significantly more community members and fewer
loan officers being trained as trainers. Within a year,
these trainers successfully disseminated content to 68,000
households, with higher session attendance in the autonomous
selection group. Analysis from follow-up surveys finds stark
differences in behavior change: recipients in the autonomous
selection group show significant improvements in financial
attitudes, rules of thumb, and planning, as well as
budgeting and savings behaviors. In contrast, recipients in
the fixed selection group show no significant improvements
on any of the outcome measures. These results underscore the
importance of community-led delivery of financial education programs. |
|---|