Comments on: Leveraging Religions for Financial Capability

By: John Gitau

John Gitau — Fri, 03 May 2013 10:21:47 +0000

Indeed, Daniel, religion joins grandma and great mom as the best inflicters of moral-financial conscience! Thanks you for fertilizing my thoughts. The religion and financial inclusion synergy is so potent that no person is able to ferret out all the inherent gems. Like you have mentioned about Islamic banking, I am not sure if the nascent prosperity gospel wave sweeping the globe is something to count on in reversing the poor’s attitude towards money after centuries of indoctrinating statements such as ” blessed are the poor—-“( of course taken literally by the innocent poor seeking solace in the promise of a better after life). The power of religion in inculcating beliefs and attitude can perhaps only be matched by Military. As a start, we would like to see the poor passionately disliking poverty and desiring the good things that money can help access. Religion, with all its advantages is better suited to do so.

All said, I found Chalmers’ work across the world on financial inclusion very inspiring. Thanks Chris again for linking me with Professor Fikkert who kindly interacted with me on this area. More information can be found athttp://www.chalmers.org/work/gtc/programs/financia

By: Daniel Rozas

Daniel Rozas — Thu, 02 May 2013 19:36:56 +0000

Like Chris, I think this is brilliant. John — one other point you neglected, and perhaps among the most important, is the role of religion for providing simple rules that help in daily decision-making, especially in areas of temptation. I suspect that most individuals, poor or rich, know that borrowing for “temptation goods” such as entertainment is bad. I suspect that most also appreciate that saving for upcoming expenses (such as school fees, the planting season, etc.) is good. It just happens that these aren’t always easy decisions to make. By laying down strong principles, religion can help guide in that decision-making, especially since it brings in the added element of communal/social support.

Indeed, it wasn’t just a handful of religious movements like Desjardins that combined religion with savings. The early years of many savings banks in Europe and N. America were very strongly associated with the religious (mainly Protestant) notions of thrift, along with temperance, upstanding morals, anti-slavery, and so forth. I suspect that was all-around a good thing. Not to say that all financial institutions should join religious orders — having strong secular institutions is deeply important — but really, there’s room for both.

CGAP and others openly and actively promote Islamic banking, which is obviously religious. What’s wrong with rediscovering the lessons from those early roots of savings motivated by religious admonitions of thrift?

By: John Gitau

John Gitau — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:19:34 +0000

Thank you Chris for the lead. I checked out and found that Professor Fikkert is doing great things at Chalmers for financial inclusion. This gives more impetus to my suggestion though admitting that the delivery nuances give credibility to Beth’s fear. I would say constructive ways are in the similarities in objectives -well-being for humanity and destructive ways would result from misinterpretation of the role of religion in the same well-being. The synergetic possibilities I visualized would be distorted perhaps by the conditioned and deeply entrenched ways institutions would want to handle financial inclusion. The secular wouldn’t want, I suppose, to be bogged down by religiousness while the evangelical would want to embed spiritualism in financial inclusion. Harmonizing the two approaches or the desire for each side to have the other cross the floor, is what would bring lethargy to the attempted leveraging. Power competition possibilities could be harsh an allusion? But all said, Chalmers are doing a great job for financial inclusion. Have a look: http://www.covenant.edu/academics/undergrad/ecd/faculty/fikkert

By: erhyne

erhyne — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:36:34 +0000

I find the idea intriguiging but scary. Like politics, religion is a powerful sword that can be used in both constructive and destructive ways. I’m not sure how to facilitate the constructive without risking the destructive.

By: Chris Dunford

Chris Dunford — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:02:00 +0000

This is brilliant, John! Leveraging existing infrastructure to disseminate innovation is always the first option to explore. Not that it is easy; usually that existing infrastructure is composed of people and community with their own self-conception, language and culture that can make it quite difficult for outsiders to offer new ideas in credible, acceptable ways. This can make it seem just too difficult to bother with, which I suspect is why there hasn’t been more effort to reach out to the various religious communities. But you are thinking on the right track — as an insider rather than an outsider, I would guess. Finding and supporting key insiders is the ticket to success.

Moreover, there is ample precedent for religious communities actively supporting financial inclusion. Christian communities have been major actors in establishment of community-based credit unions. The Mouvement Desjardins of Quebec was very closely allied with the Roman Catholic Church of Quebec, to the point that it was said of Quebec in the early 20th century that in every Quebec village, there was a Catholic church and a Desjardins caisse populaire just behind it. The two institutions came to symbolize and underpin Quebecois self-determination.

You have a natural ally at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia: Prof. Brian Fikkert. He understands the issues very well from the point of view of evangelical Protestantism as an agent for international development and financial inclusion in particular. He runs the Chalmers Center there. Check it out and contact him.

Chris Dunford