to adapt the programme to further strengthen quality assurance, respond to the challenges, and safeguard against any “ mis - education ” of consumers. i urge members to continue using the website and trainers manual as the primary source of information in their training. it is important that our starting point in educating consumers is the same. when in doubt, please always refer to the financial literacy strategy that was launched in august 2013 by the honorable minister of finance, planning and economic development ( mofped ). on our part, we reiterate our commitment both in terms of financial and human resources to further bolster the financial and economic education agenda in uganda. we are also working closely with the requisite ministries, departments and agencies of government to ensure that the diversity and quality of institutions providing financial services expands, and that they are well regulated. to that end, i trust that once the amendments to the financial institutions act and the regulations for the tier - four institutions that are being considered are passed into law, we shall have more ugandans served and probably more efficiently. as i conclude my remarks, i once again thank the members present here today for the tremendous work thus far. however, we must not rest on our laurels as a lot remains to be done. i thank you all and wish you good deliberations in the meeting. it is now my pleasure to declare the financial literacy information sharing group ( flisg ) meeting open. bank of uganda statistics department. bis central bankers ’ speeches

2011, from an annual rate of 47 percent in september to 34 percent in november. the exchange rate against the us dollar has strengthened by about 15 percent since mid october, partly as a result of foreign portfolio capital inflows attracted by the higher interest rates in uganda. fuel prices have just started to edge down as a result of the strengthening of the exchange rate. in addition the food price shock has begun to abate. as a result of these positive developments, both headline and core inflation peaked in october and then fell back in november and december, as can be seen in figure 4. monthly inflation rates, which provide a good indicator of current inflationary pressures, fell very sharply in november and december ; monthly core inflation averaged only 0. 6 percent in november and december, which was much lower than the average of 3. 8 percent in the previous four months. annual inflation rates are still high – headline and core inflation stood at 27 percent and 29. 2 percent respectively in december – and we still have a long way to go to comprehensively subdue inflation, but we are moving firmly in the right direction. i am confident that if we persevere with our monetary policy stance we will be able to pull inflation down to single digits by the end of this year. as inflation falls during the course of this year, it will be possible to start reduce interest rates gradually. figure 5 bank lending rates and the 364 day treasury bill rate, percent : june 2008 – november 2011 source : bou. concluding thoughts i hope that i have helped you to understand the current difficulties facing our economy and the response of monetary policy, the primary objective of which is to control inflation. as i have explained, monetary policy is purely a tool of aggregate demand management. economic policy consists of both demand management and supply side policies. the latter aim to strengthen the productive capacity of the economy ; its aggregate supply. fiscal policy is central to supply side policies although fiscal restraint is also important to support monetary policy in demand management. bis central bankers ’ speeches supply side policies comprise structural policies and mostly sectoral and microeconomic in nature ; they include the construction of public infrastructure, incentives for private investment, competition and trade policies, and agricultural extension services. as a government we need to improve supply side policies to strengthen economic growth over the medium to long term, in particular by improving the quality of public services, the cost and quality of public infrastructure and the business environment. supply side and demand management policies are not alternatives ; they