A Global Desk Review of Financial Education’s Contribution to Girls’ Economic Empowerment

Globally, there are 600 million adolescent girls in developing countries who face challenges to education and health services and too often face persistent discrimination and violence. They frequently have limited opportunities to gain the education, knowledge, resources, and skills that can lead to economic advancement. Programs and interventions that seek to expand those opportunities, such as those containing financial education, can be critical levers for change in adolescent girls’lives; helping them to gain independence, establish good financial habits, and improve their future prospects for decent work. Helping girls gain control of the decisions that affect them can help break the intergenerational cycle of poverty.

Social education may include life skills, interpersonal networking, peer relationships, communication, and personality development. Economic empowerment allows adolescent girls to maximise their own opportunities, providing them with the knowledge and skills to take advantage of the choices made available to them as a result. At the same time, they are given the power and voice to determine how to do so by influencing the individual, social, and political context in the world they live in. This includes access to, knowledge of, and control over their economic livelihoods, assets, and skills.5,6 A femaleis economically empowered when she has both the ability tosucceed and advance financially and the power to make andact on economic decisions.

This improved financial capability, and encouragement of saving in particular, can positively influence educational attitudes, health outcomes, social protection and entrepreneurial success. Through both direct and indirect pathways, financial education should be able to contribute to building a solid foundation for economic empowerment, ultimately leading to positive, long-term societal change and economic growth.