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Displaying all posts under the topic of Education
Poor households in developing countries face large and varied risks. Many agriculture-dependent households, for example, are at risk of drought- or flood-induced crop failures or livestock deaths. The death of a family member often implies having to fund expensive burial ceremonies, and if the deceased was the household’s primary earner, replacing her/his stream of income is an even bigger problem.
November 26, 2012
New Research: Three papers from Sendhil Mullainathan
We do our best (not always successfully) to keep up with new research relevant to finance, poverty and development. Today, I’ll be sharing highlights from some new papers by FAI affiliate Sendhil Mullainathan.
Most players in the microinsurance sector would agree that to increase the outreach of microinsurance products, more education is needed. But, this is where the agreement ends. Discussions around content, delivery, funding and measurement of insurance education raise more questions than answers. What is insurance education, and how should we define it? How is it different from product marketing? What are the most effective delivery channels? Who should pay for education? How do we measure its impact?
September 10, 2009
When low-tech is highly successful
It is a difficult and not particularly fruitful debate when different sectors important to economic development are pitted against one another in the quest for donor attention. Lasting development progress usually encompasses many areas, and debates that fail to recognize this are often just distracting. Some of the more interesting (and no less heated) debates are waged once a specific sector of focus or growth constraint has been identified.
August 24, 2009
Why millions of the world’s poor still choose to go private
Why millions of the world´s poor still choose to go private (from The Financial Times)
Even though public school teachers and public doctors tend to be much more qualified (and cheaper to access) than their private sector counterparts, people in the developing world tend to choose the private option.
May 20, 2009
Saving for School Requirements in Uganda
Once, expressing concern over some logistical difficulty, I was reassured by a headmaster, “Do not worry Sarah, we shall succeed.” Such conversations tend to surprise me, as we’re introducing a savings scheme to an area defined by general distrust of financial services and particularly those having to do with savings. In spite of this fact, and though the program’s pilot has only been running for a couple months, the scheme has generated an extremely positive response.
October 15, 2008
Does Financial Literacy Improve Savings?
A few months ago I did a quick review of the literature on financial literacy training to find out whether there was any indication that those programs have been successful. I was struck by the lack of evidence. Out of all the studies I could find only a couple stood out as being remotely credible. So I took notice when one of those studies, the best of the lot, was put under new scrutiny by Shawn Cole in a presentation last month at a World Bank conference on financial literacy.