Image from Flickr.com/camusartink

By Mat Despard and Julia Stevens, Center for Social Development

Do Ghanaian youth have money? How do they get it? What do they do with it? These are questions we are beginning to answer in YouthSave using data from a baseline survey of over 6,000 in-school youth.

What makes answering these questions so exciting is that we know very little about the financial lives of youth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).  And yet, this data is important.  As efforts grow to provide financial education to youth to increase their access to financial services, we need to have a better handle on how youth interact with money.

Image from proudlyafrican.com. Accessed at: http://bit.ly/Ok03x2

By Rodrigo Sermeno, New America Foundation

The increasing development of Kenya’s banking sector has allowed many people to have access to savings, especially those without prior access to financial services. This change has come primarily from new technologies, such as mobile phones and ATM machines, that have facilitated access to these services. In this rapidly changing environment, YouthSave’s partner, Kenya Post Office Savings Bank (Postbank), has had to work arduously to remain relevant to customers in a financial sector fundamentally different than the one a few years ago.

By Tanaya Kilara, CGAP

The business case for youth savings is one of the most talked-about topics in the youth financial services space. There is tremendous interest from funders and youth practitioners to better understand whether youth savings can be a profitable product for financial service providers to offer. At CGAP, we are specifically looking at these questions within the YouthSave project, and I wanted to share some early thoughts.

Image provided by Save the Children

By Alejandra Montes Saenz, Save the Children Colombia

On June 14^th, Save the Children in Colombia hosted the first YouthSave Multi-Stakeholder Meeting (MSM), which brought together representatives from government ministries and agencies, local and international NGOs, and microfinance institutions. The goal of the MSM was to present YouthSave to a broad audience of stakeholders, connect with institutions that work on similar issues, and contribute to the national dialogue on topics such as financial education, financial capability, and financial inclusion – issues that have recently gained increasing attention from the government, NGOs, and other private organizations in Colombia.   Members from the public included around 40 representatives from government institutions such as the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank and Banca de las Oportunidades, organizations such as MercyCorps, Plan, Conexión Colombia and UNDP, and microfinance institutions such as Bancamia and Finamérica.