Patterns of Engagement with Youth Savings Groups in Four African Countries

Abstract

This report details findings of research undertaken under the Banking on Change Academic Partnership, which was established in 2014 between the Banking on Change (BoC) programme (a partnership of Plan UK, CARE International UK and Barclays Bank) and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). The research sought to identify and explore different patterns of engagement with the programme’s youth savings groups, and how those patterns relate to members’ socio-economic characteristics, income-generating activities, and the training they had received. BoC, whose last phase focused on youth savings groups and ran from 2013 to 2015, operated in seven countries: Egypt, Ghana, India, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Field work took place between April and August 2015 in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Ghana. The research team engaged with two savings groups in each country. Information was gathered through group discussions, 57 detailed interviews with individual savings group members, and analysis of individuals’ savings and borrowing activities as recorded in ledger books and passbooks. The strategy used for identifying savings groups and group members for interview was not meant to yield a representative sample of BoC participants, but rather to capture the range of savings and borrowing patterns.