Sri Lanka women borrowers trapped by ill-understood loan agreements says UNDP’s Kubota
COLOMBO – Sri Lanka’s household debt has risen during an economic crisis, and less literate female borrowers in particular were hit by loan agreements they had signed without the ability to understand their legal implications, UNDP Resident Representative Azusa Kubota said.
A recent multidimensional vulnerability report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in collaboration with Oxford University found that the lack of financial literacy among borrowers, particularly women-headed households, contributes to their vulnerability.
“Women, often, were forced into signing agreements in a language they did not understand. They did not know their rights or responsibilities, nor the terms of borrowing,” Kubota said, speaking at the launch of the Financial Literacy Roadmap of Sri Lanka.
In the absence of basic financial literacy they were often forced into poor financial decisions, she said.
Financial literacy programs, debt management strategies and livelihood diversification options could address the acute debt vulnerabilities, Kubota said.
“This would also require the development of sustainable livelihood options for them so that they could come out of this cycle of poverty and deprivations,” she noted, adding that financial literacy has a vital role to play in alleviating the vulnerabilities faced by many communities in Sri Lanka at this point in time.
The UNDP will offer its technical expertise to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka to develop financial literacy-related modules, design an advocacy campaign and disseminate the content, particularly among young people and women working in micro, small, and medium enterprises, she said.
-economynext.com
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