Financial Literacy Training Toolbox

Financial Literacy Toolbox

The development and dissemination of financial literacy training tools and activities. The Financial Literacy Toolbox helps to advance the management capacity of sustainable SME producers and to improve awareness and understanding of financial management. As a framework of documents, information and management training, the Toolbox is adaptable and applicable to a wide range of sectors and business activities. As such, it has global reach, from producers in Latin America to Asia.

BACKGROUND

A major barrier to the growth of sustainable Small and Medium Enterprises (SSMEs) in the developing world is a generally inadequate level of financial literacy. This gap in financial education and practice, largely due to a lack of comprehensive management training, hampers the prosperity of a business through a variety of adverse knock-on effects.

Poor planning, underestimating market volatility, and inadequate accounting can all result directly in financial losses for many sustainable SMEs. Facing these potential difficulties also severely restrict their ability to access capital from cautious, risk-averse lenders.. These same lenders also require solid financial information with which to make a decision on investing capital; information that these businesses lack the financial literacy to provide.

A number of socially-oriented lenders and NGOs have already begun to work with their SME partners to improve business accounting and management skills. However, this training has limited reach relative to the widespread needs and, overall, lacks a comprehensive curriculum. Many existing materials have been developed to covering limited criteria of financial literacy and within specific regional and organizational needs, but a more complete toolbox is needed to improve the general state of financial literacy among sustainable SMEs.

The FAST Financial Literacy Toolbox develops a comprehensive education package aimed at building these financial, accounting and business management skills. With an improved level of financial literacy among sustainable SMEs, long-term growth of the sustainable trade sector may be assured.

FAST draws upon the experience and expertise of its partners to compile a comprehensive toolbox playing on the strengths of existing material. The toolkit represents a knowledge base that meets the needs of sustainable SMEs worldwide.

As FAST negotiates the use of more integrated, detailed materials for inclusion in the Financial Literacy Toolbox, these sites may still offer valuable financial literacy resources for sustainable SMEs.

GOALS

The FAST Financial Literacy Toolbox increases access to affordable finance for sustainable SMEs in the global market by improving their financial management capacity. The Toolbox supports this increased financial literacy among sustainable SMEs through the development of a comprehensive and generic set of financial training materials.

The Financial Literacy Toolbox combines the expertise of FAST partners to compile a more complete set of materials. It delivers online training and ‘training for trainers’ to maximize the reach of the materials. And finally, it improves management capacity of a business, regardless of location or sector of activity.

STRATEGIC APPROACH

Our two-phased approach enables progress to be made rapidly by providing a Basic edition consisting of a limited number of modules, as a first phase. The second phase provides a comprehensive Complete package of training materials covering advanced topics.

Phase One: Development of the Toolbox
The Financial Literacy Toolbox composes a set of training materials designed for sustainable SMEs, available free of charge. The core financial literacy tools developed for the Basic edition of the first phase will be refined based on pilot workshops, in order to serve as a solid foundation for the more comprehensive toolkit due in the second phase of the project.

Phase Two: Extension and Distribution
The development of a comprehensive Complete toolbox will consist of securing and adapting existing materials and developing new materials to fill any gaps. This provides a complete, standardized toolkit from which training can begin. Following the development of the materials, the distribution strategy will connect sustainable SMEs throughout the world with financial literacy training partners and resources, further increasing the reach of the project.

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