Genesis is MEL partner for ASISA Foundation
The ASISA Foundation was established by the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA) under its Foster the Future initiative to implement programmes promoting consumer financial education (CFE) on behalf of the industry, with the explicit goal of becoming a centre of best practice for this type of education.
To make this happen, the foundation prioritised the monitoring and evaluation of its education programmes. It could then learn from and improve the ongoing CFE programmes.The foundation could also generate lessons and good practices for the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of such programmes more broadly. It disseminated these lessons to the ASISA membership body and other organisations in the financial sector that implemented similar programmes.
The foundation contracted Genesis as its monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) partner in 2014 to evaluate and provide ongoing feedback on its pilot CFE programme, Saver Waya-Waya. The evaluation generated a number of lessons and recommendations. The most notable were the effectiveness of repeat messaging through a variety of delivery mechanisms, and the importance of targeting groups who are at a similar stage of life so that the message can be contextualised for them.
As a result, the ASISA Foundation has since funded interventions that are more targeted. These have all been designed explicitly, based on the recommendations emerging from the evaluation of the pilot Saver Waya-Waya programme. In addition, each iteration informs the design of the next phases.
Saver Waya-Waya WageWise focuses on employed workers. It emphasises the importance of saving and planning for retirement. It also looks at financial products and services that will help people plan for the future. As a long-term MEL partner to the ASISA Foundation, Genesis is undertaking a three-year panel study that will follow several participants. The study tracks how the programme affects their long-term knowledge and changes their behaviour.
Saver Waya-Waya L+EARN engages young adults through Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges and universities. It includes a soft-skills component to prepare students for the world of work, entrepreneurship and side hustles.
Saver Waya-Waya BUILD UP for Co-operatives is a programme that aims to support people who are already working together to achieve a common goal within a formal or informal structured organisation or group.
Genesis continues to work in partnership with the ASISA Foundation as its MEL partner across its full portfolio of CFE programmes. Through this partnership, Genesis recommendations have improved the design of these programmes and have helped the foundation to become a thought leader in the field.
Read the report SAVER WAYA-WAYA: ASISA Foundation’s financial literacy programme
More about the work of the ASISA Foundation
Top photo: TVET students perform their industrial theatre production as part of ASISA's Saver Waya-Waya programme.