Financial Literacy and Consumer Awareness Survey 2011

The survey was commissioned by the World Bank and it is aligned with the objectives of the World Bank's (WB) Global Program on Consumer Protection and Financial literacy that was launched in 2010. The aim of the WB program is to help targeted countries achieve better consumer protection in financial services. The WB initiative has targeted both public and private sector agencies, and has sponsored comprehensive research projects with the objective of finding the best solutions for each individual country/region. The survey focuses on financial services such as banking, insurance, microfinance in terms of credit, savings and payment systems, and was designed to identify the level of financial awareness and familiarity with financial services providers in the West Bank and Gaza. The survey also tried to identify appropriate methods for expanding consumer education and strengthening consumer rights in the West Bank and Gaza. It is expected that the survey will support the objectives outlined by the Word Bank's Financial Governance/Consumer Protection in Financial Services Program. A major objective of this survey is to provide regional data for the World Bank's multi-national database. Thus, the inherent strengths of this initiative is that it will allow regional stakeholders the opportunity to draw upon both local and international data. Local, international, small and large-scale strategies can then be formulated by comparing the diagnostic reviews of local data to that of other survey countries. By learning from the successes and failures of other survey countries, more effective mechanisms for the improvement of consumer protection and financial literacy in the West Bank and Gaza can be established.