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Home / FLI highlights collaborative approach to inclusive financial education
FLI highlights collaborative approach to inclusive financial education
2018-03-19Staff Report 2 Staff Reporter Windhoek-The Financial Literacy Initiative (FLI) celebrated its 6th anniversary on Thursday through a stakeholder workshop with its platform of supporters and members of the media. Speaking at the event FLI manager Francois Brand highlighted the importance of a collaborative approach to inclusive financial education. The FLI is a national platform aimed at enhancing the financial capability of individuals and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) with regard to personal and business finance. Its main objective is to improve financial literacy, including an increased knowledge of financial products, services and institutions. The FLI was officially launched by the Ministry of Finance together with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Government on March 15, 2012. Cabinet endorsed FLI in 2011 after recognizing the growing demand to enhance the living conditions of all Namibians by expanding their financial knowledge. Since the inception of the FLI in 2012 it has reached many people across the nation through various channels, be it TV, print media, radio, social media, training, roadshows, public talks, trade fairs and many more public awareness activities. Through these activities FLI has received acclaim for educating Namibians on financial matters so enabling them to make better financial decisions. The FLI has achieved a number of milestones in the past few years, namely: This year the FLI successfully developed a new five-year plan, which reiterates its objectives; the FLI successfully held its first Start-Up Festival in 2017 and is currently developing a second festival from June 29-30. The festival aims to reinforce the link between start-ups, entrepreneurs, corporates, government and other stakeholders to strengthen and build the start-up environment in Namibia. It furthermore distributed approximately 200,000 educational booklets countrywide as well as translating one of them into six different local languages i.e. Oshiwambo, Silozi, Rukwangali, Otjiherero, Afrikaans and English: It also developed the InvestWise & TaxWise booklets that highlight the importance of tax and investments; equipped almost 1,500 SMEs with financial business management skills to increase and change their financial knowledge and behavior; conducted financial wellness workplace sessions with a number of platform supporter institutions; complemented the educational booklets with frequent radio shows the FLI has on different stations, combined with educative interviews on NBC’s ‘Good Morning Namibia’, that ensure educational information on financial matters reaches a broad audience. Adding to its efforts to make itself accessible to the public, the FLI also launched and successfully runs an on and offline platform the Info-Hub, which provides businesses and start-ups with information on access to finance; and the FLI hosted a number of woman and finance conferences in an attempt to bridge gender inequality as well as equip women with the knowledge and skills needed to successfully make educated decisions on their financial well-being. 2018-03-19Staff Report 2
