Empowering Girls with Economic Assets

This multimedia section of The Girl Effect website, a website aimng to start a movement to boost the status of girls as a solution to poverty, includes an introduction to girls' economic empowerment, an info graphic on girls' economic empowerment, a slide set on strategies, and a video on The Ripple Effect: How Small Loans Break the Poverty Cycle, with voices of girls from CARE's programme micro-loan programme Ishaka in Burundi. (See below.)

The 23-slide set describes: 1)  why girls need economic empowerment; 2)  the advantages of equipping girls with livelihood and financial skills; and 3) what girls need. An assets chart includes human, financial, social and physical assets, including communication skills, education, literacy, bargaining power, social networks, relationships of trust, mentors and friends, an identity card, access to loans and personal assets, among many others. Slides describe how girls can use these assets to advantage and what age-appropriate assets would be. Slide number 11 shows assets as foundational skills starting at age 10 - +18 years of age and lists outcomes that benefit the girls, families, and communities, as well as how they carry development forward. Foundational skills are described in subsequent slides by age categories. For example, appropriate for 10 -13 year olds are life skills opportunities joined with reproductive health education and training in communication, interpersonal, planning, and problem solving skills, and self-discovery through social support and mentoring. The Smart Savings Uganda programme is described as an example. (See related summaries below.)

The slide set describes how this foundation results in advantages of assurance, economic opportunity, and bargaining power for adolescents and older girls. The example is the Value Girls programme in Kenya for girls aged 14 - 24 who live in fishing communities and are given farming life skills as well as safe spaces, financial skills training, mentoring, and micro credit and savings opportunities. The set concludes with links for further reading.