“Unified Mobile, Financial, and Information Literacy Toolkit”: A Social Innovation for Public Libraries to Alleviate Poverty in Developing Countries

Abstract

Social innovations implemented by public libraries rarely alleviate poverty. Mobile payments (i.e., financial transactions over mobile phones) represent the most widely used solution to alleviate poverty in developing countries, provided that people living in poverty have mobile, financial, and information literacy. This article reports a 3-year-plus study of proposing, testing, customizing, and disseminating a practice-based, outcome-driven, and community-oriented social innovation in the form of a “unified mobile, financial, and information literacy toolkit” to public librarians in India, who can assess mobile, financial, and information literacy of the poor at once and enhance their mobile payment readiness. Public libraries can be a strategic partner of the United Nations and governments in developing countries for addressing the grand challenge of poverty in society.