Assessing the State of Youth Financial Inclusion in Developing Contexts

In developing and emerging contexts, youth of all ages and backgrounds face substantial and multidimensional challenges when seeking to access the financial services they need to take adequate care of several aspects of their personal and professional lives. These barriers to financial inclusion represent a core development constraint that limits the capability of the youth to unlock their true potential as entrepreneurs, business innovators, and – ultimately – as agents of growth and change in developing contexts.

This guide draws primarily from the lessons learned during the realization of a series of assessments on the state of youth financial inclusion in Uganda, Kenya, and Guatemala in 2019 and 2020.  It is meant for development practitioners as well as other stakeholders, and aims to provide a series of concrete considerations related to carrying out such assessments, drawn from practical experience, while also proposing a set of standardized steps that can be followed to ensure the quality and comprehensiveness of these types of evaluations.