The Ministry of Finance says the Financial Literacy Week will provide an opportunity for children, youths, and adults to increase their knowledge in order to live better lives.
Finance Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe says government will this year launch the National Financial Education Strategy.
Mrs. Mwanakatwe says the Financial Literacy Week reinforces the need for citizens across all age groups to work towards attaining financial education that will help them achieve positive financial outcomes.
She says the campaign is also aimed at empowering those seeking financial education with understanding and knowledge on how to make prudent decisions at personal, family, organizational, community, and national level.
“The theme for this year’s Financial Literacy Week is ‘Be Money Smart, to Live a Better Life’. This theme was adapted from the 2019 Global Money Week theme: ‘Learn, Save, Earn’. The Global Money Week is a Child and Youth Finance International (CYFI) initiative, which is an annual awareness campaign aimed at inspiring children and youth to learn about money matters and entrepreneurship,” she said.
“This year’s theme is a build up from the 2018 Financial Literacy Week theme which was ‘Save, Invest, and Insure-to Live a Better Life’.”
Mrs. Mwanakatwe notes that in order to meet the obligations that are associated with key events in one’s life, financial know-how and planning are very crucial.
She adds that the campaign will help to heighten public awareness on the need for planning and maximisation of positive outputs from these key life events, in order to improve financial outcomes.
“The steps towards living better lives begin with understanding how to multiply money. Partly, this can be achieved through acquisition of knowledge on savings, investments, and pensions and insurance services. That knowledge is what will be shared at various exhibition sites throughout the country this week,” said the minister.
“In 2017, my ministry launched the National Financial Inclusion Strategy for the period 2017 to 2022. Through this strategy, we are working towards increasing the country’s financial inclusion levels from the current 59 percent, recorded in the 2015 FinScope Survey, to 80 percent by 2022.”
Mrs. Mwanakatwe states that the strategy spells out the country’s vision for financial inclusion, which is to ensure universal access to, and usage of a broad range of quality and affordable financial products and services.
She further adds that in achieving this vision, it is expected that Zambians will reap the full benefits of financial inclusion – which entails comprehensive access and usage of, appropriate savings, credit, payments, insurance, pensions and investments products and services.
She says this will ultimately help citizens to manage risk, plan for the future, and achieve their goals.
“Despite the progress on financial inclusion levels recorded in the 2015 FinScope Survey, representing about 4.8 million adults in Zambia, a lot more needs to be done in order to achieve the targets outlined in this strategy. Later on this year, we will be launching the National Financial Education Strategy. The initiative will be targeted at identifying financial literacy challenges and addressing them through custom tailored financial literacy interventions,” she said.

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