New YouthSave Publication: "Savings accounts for young people in developing countries: trends in practice"

Recently, the Enterprise Development and Microfinance Journal (EDM),” published their ‘youth and children’ – focused December edition, featuring a piece co-authored by the Director of YouthSaveat Save the Children, Rani Deshpande and Director of the Global Assets Project at the New America Foundation, Jamie Zimmerman:

“Savings accounts for young people in developing countries: trends in practice”

Adapted from a longer paper, “Youth Savings in Developing Countries,” this EDM article provides valuable information on the range of youth savings initiatives available in the developing world, the actors implementing them, the various forms they take, and the range of objectives they are intended to achieve.  Additionally, the piece presents evidence on the extent to which youth savings initiatives are fulfilling the potential to promote youth development and financial inclusion.  This dual potential is at the center of YouthSave’s goal: to investigate the potential of savings accounts as a tool for youth development and financial inclusion in developing countries, by co-creating tailored, sustainable savings products with local financial institutions and assessing their performance and development outcomes with local researchers.

Two additional youth savings-focused articles are featured in the EDM Journal December edition: First, “YouthInvest: A case study of savings behaviour as an indicator of change through experiential learning” which highlights the important findings from YouthInvest, a project that MEDA started to provide youth savings accounts and local NGOs in Morocco with life skills, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy training. The second featured article is “Emerging guidelines for linking youth to financial services,” co-authored by Making Cents International’s Fiona Macaulay and Lara Storm, and UNCDF’s, Beth Porter.  Among many things, the article presents six 'Emerging Guidelines' for linking young people to financial services.

EDM is a publication which “provides a forum for those involved in designing and running enterprise development and microfinance programmes in developing countries.”

Explore the YouthSave website for more information about the Project, our work and our publications.