Executive Summary

Project Host:

Fellows:

Luca Maria Pesando, Research Fellow
Martin Tomasik, Research Fellow
Simi Lawoyin, Social Entrepreneur Fellow

Introduction: Aflatot Program

Aflatot is an early childhood education program for sustainable development, developed by Aflatoun International specifically targeting preschool children. The program aims to develop age-relevant social-emotional skills and financial awareness and features training for facilitators to deliver the program through an active learning methodology.

The Aflatot curriculum is designed for children aged three to six years old and aims to lay the foundation for social and financial literacy before they reach primary school. By balancing social learning and financial concepts, Aflatot empowers children to believe in themselves, understand their rights and responsibilities, practice saving and spending, and even start their own enterprises.

The program includes a curriculum with detailed lesson plans or activities designed for educational settings such as schools, nurseries, and community centers. The program has a duration of 45 hours. In addition to the curriculum, Aflatot provides a family toolkit that offers sessions facilitated by educators, engaging parents with their children to learn together about social and financial content. The toolkit also suggests activities that can be done at home.

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Organization’s role & strength

Aflatoun International has 17 years of experience in life skills and financial education programming worldwide. The organization’s mission is to ensure access to quality, inclusive, child-centered social and financial education for all children and young people, especially the most vulnerable. Aflatoun’s overall goal is to socially and economically empower and provide children and young people with the skills, knowledge, and resources necessary to participate and thrive in their communities. Aflatoun, as a social franchise, currently works with and provides technical expertise to a partner network of 345 organisations (including NGOs, CSOs, and governments) that implement social and financial education programmes in more than 100 countries across different regions.

Need summary

Aflatoun was seeking to understand the following in relation to the Aflatot program:

Need 1: What is the short-term and long-term impact of the Aflatot programme on the socio-emotional development, financial literacy, and behaviour of young children, particularly in terms of their self-regulation, delayed gratification, decision-making skills, and understanding of money? How can we further improve the programme’s content and delivery?

Need 2: What is the current state of social and financial skills development in early childhood education? What is the impact of social and financial skills development programs targeted at preschool-age children in early childhood education, and what are the research gaps in understanding their effectiveness?

Toward addressing the Project Host’s needs, we developed two deliverables:

Deliverable 1: A state-of-the-art literature review and report specifically addressing the questions posed.
Deliverable 2: A research feasibility report to evaluate the implementation methodologies, necessary resources, and design strategies for conducting an effective Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) on preschool-age children's social and financial skills development.