PESAFORUM is a producer of syndicated content across Africa on how low income earners can leverage on existing and emerging financial products and services to improve their lives and achieve their dreams.

Over time, the financial sector has been developing rapidly from a supply side perspective, little attention has been paid to the demand side in educating and informing the public on the various types of products and suppliers which have been introduced into the market across the continent. Evidently, this revolution is going on quietly ,unreported and this is what Pesa Forum seeks to highlight.

Our goal at Pesa forum is to amplify that story but also highlighting the critical research of Financial Inclusion researchers by telling the human stories behind the data. Pesa Forum’s journalistic analysis synthesizes research from myriad organizations and disciplines to illuminate unique connections across communities and identify literature patterns that may teach us all bigger lessons in financial inclusion terms.

Why Journalism?

In July 2012, the founders ,a group of journalists, picked interest in financial inclusion, following media fellowships that had focused on rural reporting across Tanzania. Beside issues central to the stories they were following up while embedded in rural communities across the country, they saw first hand how the ‘mobile bank’, called mobile money was playing a central role in every individual and family life. It dawned on them that even in the absence of the physical bank as we all knew it, individuals and communities were financially connected to financial systems in urban areas through the mobile phone. However, even away from the mobile phone, these individuals were also creating their own ways of saving money and building confidence in their financial lives.

Months of deliberations on how media can highlight this story at the centre of everyone’s life anywhere, led to the founding of Pesa Forum, a specialized content innitiative that exclusively explores financial inclusion content across the continent.

Journalism is a powerful way to focus public attention. It is imperative not only to disseminate studies, but also to engage readers as Pesa Forum does. Telling relatable stories stirs social movements and change, creating momentum that will, in turn, propel policymakers. Although a wealth of important research and data exists in the academic and think tank sectors – research that is having an impact—it could have a much broader reach. We want to expose, interpret and broadcast this rich material, accelerating its potential to drive change through Pesa Forum content that has human faces attached to it.

But Pesa Forum goes beyond, and syndicates the widely read articles and videos through its existing relationships with other general media outlets as a way to further draw the public into the Pesa Forum conversation on financial inclusion and help shape debates among policymakers and media elites. We delve into an expanding body of academic research, reporting and publishing articles through our media partners that spotlight key findings and trends.