Economic Citizenship and the Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nation’s Development Agenda 2030 has put forward an ambitious set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to guide global development over the coming 15 years. The objective of this network brief is to demonstrate how the implementation of an economic citizenship strategy for children and youth can contribute to the achievement of many of the SDGs and corresponding sub-targets. In particular, financial inclusion and Economic Citizenship Education (ECE) for children and youth have a significant link to SDG #1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11 and 16. Therefore, it is beneficial for national policy makers and leading youth-serving organizations to take this document into account when determining what approaches they will take to satisfy the UN Development Agenda 2030.

Financial inclusion and financial, social, and livelihoods education (the three components that make up the holistic learning framework of ECE) should be considered a long-term strategy for sustainable youth development, and one that can fit within the framework of the Development Agenda 2030. This document will therefore explain how the complementary nature of each of the elements of economic citizenship can contribute to the achievement of the relevant SDGs and corresponding sub-targets.