STATE OF THE FIELD IN YOUTH ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES

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Table of Contents Chapter 9 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Annexes 2012 State of the Field in Youth Economic Opportunities 7 Asset-Based Approaches: Building and Protecting Assets for AGYW Chapter 7: Asset-Based Approaches: Building and Protecting Assets of AGYW Asset-based approaches simultaneously reduce vulnerability and increase young people’s access to opportunities. 38 While asset-building works for all young people, it is particularly important for adolescent girls and young women (AGYW). In the name of “building culture” and claims of protection, adolescent girls are often deprived of what they need to prepare for decent livelihood–they often face social isolation and unrealistic or inactive economic identity, they are often not afforded meaningful skills building in the financial literacy, and they often are not able to obtain initial savings experience. It is striking that even girls who complete secondary school and enter the workforce influence their livelihoods at a much lower rate than males with the same educational background. At the 2011 GYEOC, presenters discussed how to both build and protect assets (see Box 7.1.1 for concrete examples). Recent research and practical experience on gender, employment, entrepreneurship, and legal codes illuminate the vulnerability of AGYW’s assets and steps YEO programs can take to ensure that girls’ assets continue to develop. • Economic empowerment is not enough. AGYW need more than economic opportunities to make a productive, healthy and safe transition from childhood to adulthood; economic opportunities also have the potential to increase girls’ exposure to sexual harassment and violence. Karen Austrian, Associate of the Population Council 39 , highlighted that a program that builds girls’ social, health, and economic assets can increase girls’ financial literacy, savings activity, and use of formal financial services, in addition to increasing her self-esteem, social networks, savings behavior, and health knowledge and behavior. • Pay attention to timing. Invest in girls early, when puberty changes AGYW’s roles in family and society, and provide additional support and legal guidance at critical moments of transition such as marriage. • Asset-building should be developmentally appropriate. Girls need different social, financial, and developmental assets at different periods in their life. For example, savings products are more important when girls are young so they can learn the discipline of savings before they enter into a lending relationship. • Analyze who or what threatens AGYW assets. Building assets, particularly the developmental assets AGYW need to be successful and resilient individuals, is critical. However, it is not enough to simply prepare AGYW to participate economically as they also need an active plan to address inevitable efforts to control their income and assets by parents/male partners, sexual threats and harassment in the workplace, property rights limited unjustly by law or unenforced; these are just a few ways that economically prepared girls can lose financial assets. YEO programs must make explicit plans to help AGWY keep their assets. You need a “shark repellent” plan in place with the understanding that once you give an asset to a girl, someone will try to take it away. 40 38 Adolescent Livelihoods Report: Essential Questions, Essential Tools; A Report on a Workshop. The Population Council. 2004. Accessible at: www. popcouncil.org/pdfs/adoles.pdf 39 The Population Council is an international, nonprofit organization that conducts research on three fronts: biomedical, social science, and public health. 40 Judith Bruce, Senior Associate and Policy Analyst, Population Council. Excerpt from remarks at Making Cents International’s 2011 Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference. 82
Table of Contents Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Annexes 2012 State of the Field in Youth Economic Opportunities 7.1 Investment in AGYW Needs to Happen Early; Between 10 and 14 Years of Age Puberty—a moment that arises for girls two years biologically and sometimes four years socially earlier than it does for boys—triggers a sequence of often negative events for marginalized girls in poor communities. Judith Bruce, Senior Associate and Policy Analyst for the Population Council, noted at the 2011 GYEOC that, “Female puberty brings with it unparalleled risk with intense pressure to control female labor, fertility, and sexuality which is guaranteed by threats of violence, social exclusion “being deemed unmarriageable” and destitution.” In many countries, school dropout among girls accelerates when they become 12 to 13 years old. In addition to losing out on an education and the increased earnings associated with more years of education, girls also miss opportunities for positive socialization and skill-building. Early marriage and motherhood frequently follow. To counteract this cascading effect, investment in AGYW and asset-building needs to happen before puberty. By promoting girls’ social inclusion and skill-building, YEO programs can prepare girls for livelihoods through effective education and bolstered social networks as they face threats to their physical integrity and autonomy in adolescence. Continued support after this point is also critical. Box 7.1.1 details how one organization’s structure can span a girl’s life. Chapter 7: Asset-Based Approaches: Building and Protecting Assets of AGYW 7.1.1 Practical Tips: The Population Council on How to Protect Girls and Build Social and Financial Assets Providing girls with a few basic supports can assist them in navigating the challenges of puberty. The Population Council, an international, nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that seeks to improve the well-being and reproductive health of current and future generations around the world, suggests the following program components to build assets and keep girls safe and in school: • Create friendship networks for girls and provide regularly available spaces, places and platforms where girls can meet; • Find female mentors that girls can turn to for support; emergency. Many girls are two minutes away from exploitation. • Provide girls with age-graded, gender and context-specific financial literacy; • Help girls start incubator or emergency savings initially then help them build up to more goal-oriented savings and more sophisticated products. Savings are more important when young than credit. 41 For more information, see www.popcouncil.org. • Ensure that girls have personal documentation; • Provide girls with a context specific and realistic safety net, a safe place to stay the night in an 41 Judith Bruce. “The Unique Reasons Girls (and Later Women) are Poor and What We Can Do About It.” Presentation for Making Cents International’s 2011 Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference. September 8, 2011. 83
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STATE OF THE FIELD IN YOUTH ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES

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