YouthSave Officially Launches Website

Today the YouthSave Consortium launches its new website, www.youthsave.org, an online resource dedicated exclusively to the experiences and research of the YouthSave Project, as well as broader information on youth savings accounts around the globe.

YouthSave is a consortium project led by Save the Children in partnership with the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis (CSD), the New America Foundation (NAF), CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor), and supported by The MasterCard Foundation. The YouthSave Consortium and its local partners - financial institutions and researchers - are committed to developing, delivering, and testing savings products accessible to low-income youth in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, and Nepal. Through this website, the Consortium will share lessons and resources on delivering youth savings services that are both commercially sustainable and improve the lives of low-income youth in the developing world.

With millions of vulnerable, low-income youth living on less than two dollars per day, development practitioners are determined to find solutions to alleviate their socio-economic challenges.  Emerging evidence links savings and asset building to positive social, economic and behavioral impacts on the lives of low-income youth throughout the world. Unfortunately, many financial institutions have not developed cost-effective products and delivery systems to serve this segment of the population. Knowledge about youth savings preferences in various markets, and how best to educate and motivate them to save is also lacking.

Financial institutions - as well as the governments, donors, and NGOs that could assist them in serving low-income youth - need to be provided with better information on the development and commercial impacts of youth savings accounts. Our website will provide a central online resource dedicated to filling that knowledge gap. 

Through the YouthSave.org website, the Consortium and its partners will work to provide practitioners, researchers, policy makers, and financial institutions with lessons and insights needed to move forward in providing low-income youth with the opportunity to save and invest in their future well being.

For more information on YouthSave’s website launch, click here.