Victor Mallet
Asia Editor, Financial Times
The Financial Times is delighted to have been associated with the Citi-FT Financial Education Summit 2007 and to have helped gather in New Delhi so many experts and advocates from around the world to share their experiences and insights on boosting financial literacy.
In these challenging times, with our economies under pressure, it is all the more important to ensure that we improve the financial well-being of the under-privileged and the people who historically have been excluded from the mainstream economy.
Financial literacy is a life-skill that can help close this poverty gap, but how you build effective, long-term financial education programs, adapt them to specific communities – rural and urban – and to different needs, and measure their impact, is a matter of continuing debate.
The Summit in India focused this debate on multi-sector partnerships, because only through the combined efforts of governments, academia, the private sector and civil society can we develop productive, broad-based and results-driven programs that are sustainable over time.
It was enriching and enlightening to listen to so many practitioners present their ground-breaking initiatives and to have national regulators and other government bodies from developed and emerging economies on hand to discuss the challenges of implementation.
Based on the feedback we received, many of the participants learned new approaches and new methods and made important contacts that we hope will help boost financial literacy efforts not only in India but in many other countries.
We would like to thank the Citi Foundation and the Pearson Foundation for spearheading the Summit and also for co-sponsoring this superb publication, which summarises some of the key issues and action points generated by this very successful event.
Keep up the good work.
