Financial Literacy Kit

Using design to increase the impact of World Food Programme's Cash for Work programme in Karamoja

The Aki Financial Literacy Kit is a game-based learning tool created in collaboration with the World Food Programme, aimed at increasing financial literacy amongst beneficiaries of their “Cash for work” programme in the Karamoja region of Uganda.

Partner: World Food Programme (WFP) Year: 2012 Sector: Finance

The Challenge:

In November 2012, the WFP collaborated with Design Without Borders Africa, in using design to increase the financial literacy of the Cash for work beneficiaries in Karamoja, one of the most deprived and marginalized regions in Uganda.

A design process that involved evaluating the interactions between the service provider (WFP) and the users (beneficiaries), mapping of the programme, workshops and fieldwork, found that the participants of the programme, mainly used to a barter economy, were not familiar enough with the use of monetary systems to benefit from it.

This, combined with weak elements within the chain and opportunities to increase impact, resulted in the creation of a financial literacy kit and a digital registration tool.

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Solution 1

The Aki Financial Literacy Kit is made up of 3 different products; Aki Plan (a planning tool), Aki Play (a Karamoja version of Monopoly) and Aki Save (a savings tool). All the elements of the kit were prototyped and repeatedly modified based on feedback from user testing. Together, they introduced concepts to the beneficiaries like cash, salary and financial planning, real-life financial decisions that affect families, budgets and saving.

Aki Plan

Educate people on time, salary and financial planning.
Calendar and calculation tool to inform beneficiaries on when they are supposed to work and how much they earn if they go to work.
Calculate how much money they potentially earn in one work cycle.
Allows the beneficiaries to imagine how much cash they are going to receive and how they can spend and save it.
It also presents different situations which can arise that have consequences on their plan.
Aki Play
Users consider how best to invest their money
Participants are hit with real-life scenarios
All scenarios are based on life-like contexts within Karamoja
Aki Save
Motivational tool
Financial planning and saving
Role playing what happens when beneficiaries receive their cash
Personal budget tool (wallet) where users can maintain their plan of action and have a tangible reminder of their financial planing

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Solution 2

A registration system was developed to be adapted by the programme, by aligning already existing technology and infrastructure and developing a digital registration system using QR codes. During early mapping and research, DWB observed another challenge, with the registration of the participants in the programme which was entirely manual and frequently led to errors. The concept developed can be used without network coverage and minimizes the load of paperwork and manual documentation. It has made the registration and storing of information of the participant a lot easier for the implementing partners and for WFP.