Mandated for Change: A Review of the South African Financial Education Ecosystem through a Collaborative Governance Regime (CGR) Lens

Although financial education has gained global attention as central to fostering financial well-being and supporting financial inclusion, national strategies often remain fragmented in design and implementation, constraining policy coherence. Through the application of a collaborative governance lens, this article explores the South African financial education ecosystem in support of international quests for sustained, co-ordinated policy approaches. Informed by a conceptual model grounded in systems theory, the Quintuple Helix Model, combined with the Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance, a deductive qualitative analysis was performed. This was done through the analysis of statutory law, policy documents and grey literature to delineate the mandates of key ecosystem actors. The findings reveal four distinct categories—highly formal, semi-formal, knowledge-based and informal—distributed across government, industry, academia and civil society. The analysis proposes a novel Collaboration Mandate Framework that could guide financial education within a governance regime, which would allow diverse actors to address South Africa’s persistent socio-economic challenges. The article concludes that operationalising a financial education collaborative governance regime offers a viable pathway to enhance policy coherence, strengthen multi-actor collaboration, and contribute to reducing inequality and improving financial well-being in South Africa.