MASO is a five year programme, focused on creating employment opportunities for the youth (aged 18-25) in Ghana’s cocoa communities.
Access to finance is a major challenge for young people especially for those in rural areas. Discussion at the bi-annual learning meeting hosted by the Youth Forward Initiative recently centered on the challenges faced by young people in accessing finance.
Youth Forward aims to improve the capacity of young people in Ghana to get jobs, grow their businesses and access finance to expand opportunities available to them.
The MASO Programme presented findings of a situational research conducted on access to finance at the inception phase of the programme. The findings of the study covered barriers to financing and needs of youth, youth perception on savings and credit recovery processes and financial products and options available to youth.
The event brought together project partners for a deeper reflection, review, and sharing of experiences for learning purposes with the focus on financial inclusion and access to affordable finance for youth.
The MASO Programme in addition to building the capacity of young people to go into farming as a business and providing incubation support for youth in cocoa growing communities also supports processes to lower barriers to access to land.
The Financial inclusion partners of MASO, Fidelity Bank and Opportunity International Savings and Loans also presented their strategies for creating a linkage between banks and youth. These strategies include financial literacy training of youth, supporting youth to create savings culture and history, facilitating group loans for youth within a recognized and credible associations, loan guarantees and subsidized funding.
Participatory Development Associates Ltd, the learning partner for the Youth Forward Initiative in Ghana also presented a knowledge product on alternative finance for youth was presented by. The presentation covered case studies on alternative financial products which addresses the challenges of access to finance by young people such as collateral requirement, a high cost of borrowing and financial illiteracy.
Read more about the Youth Forward Learning Partnership
