UNDERSTANDING THE EFFECTS OF FINANCIAL AND NON-FINANCIAL SERVICES ON YOUTH.

Join our Webinar on Tuesday 20 October 2015 at 13:30 PM GMT How does access to financial and non-financial services impact youth? Does it improve their capacity to manage their money? Does it increase their use of formal financial services? How do they prepare and plan for their future compared to others?  These are some of the questions the UNCDF programme YouthStart has worked to answer over the past four years. In the upcoming webinar, YouthStart Specialist, Ata Cisse will facilitate a discussion about the key findings of a study based mainly on financial diaries methodology conducted by MicroSave with guest panelist Danielle Hopkins. The study commissioned by YouthStart and The MasterCard Foundation focuses on two of the ten financial service providers (FSPs) supported by the programme: FUCEC in Togo and ACSI in Ethiopia.  This study adds evidence regarding the potential that access to financial services positively impacts youth. It provides deeper insight into how youth manage their money, use financial services, and plan ahead for their future. Please join us if you represent a financial service provider, youth serving organization, donor, government entity, NGO or any type of organization with interests in increasing youths’ economic opportunities. You can register for the webinar by clicking here. We look forward to sharing our knowledge with The YouthStart Team About YouthStart In 2010, UNCDF in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation launched the YS programme, Building Youth Inclusive Financial Sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa, as a regional pilot. This innovative programme has worked with 10 partner FSPs in eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa, granted access to financial services to over 560,000 young people (of which 46 percent are young women), and trained over 559,000 youth in financial education (46 percent young women). Youth that have opened savings accounts with YS partners have accumulated over $14.6 million in savings and accessed over $9.6 million in loans. Early findings from research conducted by the regional pilot note that youth access financial services (eg. savings, loans etc.) in order to open their own business or to reduce risks associated with the transitions that youth undergo (eg. dropping out of school). Our mailing address is: UNCDF Immeuble E. Complexe Cetamil Point E Dakar BP 5640 Senegal