Impact Sizing and Landscaping on Financial Services for Adolescent Girls’ and Young Women’s Segmentation

The period of late adolescence and early adulthood is a significant one, which profoundly influences future potential. It is a time of key transitions to womanhood, to post-secondary training and education, to work and to marital home.  At this critical stage of life, one of the main issues to understand in relation to economic empowerment is how financial services – particularly digital financial services – can make the most difference in the lives of disadvantaged adolescent girls and young women (AGYW). CGAP and its global partnership network of more than 30 leading development organizations sought a deeper understanding of which segments of AGYW could most benefit from improved access to appropriately designed and delivered financial services, in particular DFS.

Kore Global, in partnership with DrivenData, was contracted by CGAP to generate a body of evidence - both qualitative and quantitative - that is needed that illuminates how interventions with documented impact on groups of AGYW can be scaled, and if and how these can be successfully replicated with additional segments of AGYW, reducing risk and laying the foundations for accelerated economic empowerment. Kore Global also conducted a landscaping of existing (D)FS products and related initiatives/interventions, to determine which of these show the most promise for benefiting priority segments of AGYW in emerging markets and developing economies, and where the gaps lie. The work centered on the overall question: “what is the potential for FI interventions to have an impact on AGYW aged 15 - 24?”

Based on the impact sizing and segmentation, and the landscaping, the project enabled CGAP and partners to better understand what is out there, what works, what the gaps are, and what this presents as opportunities for deepening and expanding impact. Bringing together a group of experts in the field, Kore Global worked together to identify opportunities to leverage the findings to drive real impact for AGYW.

Photo credit: Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion / CC BY-SA