Financial Education Training for Cooperatives Board and Members

Background

The government of Indonesia like many other countries in Asia and the Pacific have voluntarily committed to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2020. Indonesia has committed itself to a reduction of 26 per cent (up to 41 per cent with international support) in GHG emissions. In order to achieve this, climate change mitigation planning must be fully integrated into national economic development planning.

The effects of climate change and consequently policies of mitigation and their impact on the world of work are not always fully understood and, in some cases, considered a strain on the economy and competitiveness. The labour authorities’ and the social partners’ (ILO constituents) involvement in the development of comprehensive and coherent climate policies are required. In order to assist the government of Indonesia, the ILO through its regional office in Bangkok has selected Indonesia, as one of the five countries, to implement the Green Jobs in Asia Project. The objective of this project is to deepen ILO constituents’ understanding and commitment for the promotion of Green Jobs opportunities and an adequate transition for workers and employers towards a low carbon, climate change decelerating, environmentally friendly and socially respectful development in Indonesia.

The development of sustainable tourism in Indonesia is of paramount importance for the Government, the tourism industry and other concerned stakeholders. Part of the country’s sustainable tourism strategy is the development of eco-tourism; yet human resources need to be further strengthened in order to realize this objective. Eco-tourism activities not only will assist in generating employment opportunities, enhancing income options through increased market diversification, but also serve to encourage the community to maintain environmental quality of the local area.

Purpose and objectives

The purpose of this training is to assist the cooperative board of Bromo and its members in understanding the importance of financial management and cost accounting principles aimed at improving community welfare and income generation vis-à-vis the promotion of environmentally sustainable livelihood activities.

The training will be conducted using an ILO training module that has been developed in cooperation with Bank Indonesia entitled “Financial Education for Families”.

Following the training, monitoring will be undertaken by the trainers to verify that participants have implemented the tools introduced over the course of the training. The training will be designed to educate participants about basic financial management skills such as savings and budgeting and planning for the future, which will provide a good basis for a cooperative development initiative supporting green business activities.

The content of the training will comprise the following topics:

• Setting financial targets
• Money management
• Loan and capital development
• Dangers of debt and inability to pay debt installments
• Comparing bank saving services
• Preparing a budget
• Staying on budget
• Savings planning