On December 17, 1999, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the recommendation made by the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth that August 12 be declared International Youth Day.
In honor of this day, Women’s World Banking will be highlighting its youth savings work, which has implications for youth around the world – including migrants, which are the theme of this year’s Youth Day.
This year’s theme, “Youth Migration: Moving Development Forward,” raises awareness of the opportunities and risks associated with youth migration, shares knowledge and information stemming from recent research and analysis on this topic, and engages young people in discussions on their migration experiences (UN.org).
All this week, we will be featuring the youth savings work we have conducted in collaboration with these three institutions and beyond. By highlighting young people’s need for financial services, both migrant and non-migrant youth, Women’s World Banking hopes to contribute to the goals of the World Programme of Action for Youth by “increase[ing] the quality and quantity of opportunities available to young people for full, effective and constructive participation in society” (UN.org).
Women’s World Banking is proud to be working towards supporting the youth of the world. Since 2008, we have partnered with three financial institutions to offer access to savings accounts coupled with financial education for youth, with a focus on girls. Women’s World Banking first worked with XacBank in Mongolia and Banco ADOPEM in the Dominican Republic to become the first financial institutions in their markets to treat youth, girls in particular, as genuine bank customers. Women’s World Banking took the lessons learned from these markets, including the importance of financial education, to Ethiopia where we worked with PEACE MFI S.CO on the Lenege (“for tomorrow” in Amharic) youth savings program. We are also looking at developing further projects in Nigeria and India.
This post is part of a Youth Savings series Women’s World Banking is publishing in honor of International Youth Day 2013.
