Note from Field: Utilizing Youth-Responsive Market Research

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Young people participate in a livelihoods project design consultation in Bolivia. Photo courtesy of Save the Children.

With support from USAID, Save the Children is using “youth friendly” market research tools to create stronger programs.

Youth development and microfinance organizations are constantly exploring how to ensure better access to relevant financial and non-financial services for youth.  Organizations are finding that the market research tools they typically use for their adult clients are often not enough to gather rich information about how youth acquire, use, and save their money. 

Developing ”youth friendly” market research tools acknowledges that researchers need different ways to engage and elicit information from youth. Research has demonstrated that freedom of expression is very important when working with vulnerable youth. This means going beyond asking for verbal participation and personal opinions to using creativity and metaphors in relating to the daily lives of youth.  For example, youth friendly tools stay away from asking directly about a young person in the group to asking about a typical young person in the community. 

Save the Children has been able to successfully adapt market research tools for use with young people and found that youth-inclusive tools result in more responsive products for youth clients.  Building on the innovative work of MicroSave and EQUIP3, Save the Children is working with groups such as Fondation Zakoura in Morocco and Pro Mujer in Bolivia to incorporate approaches that engage young people in market research and assessment for projects.

Moroccan youth under 30 years of age represent 50 percent of the population, and most lack access to economic opportunities to build assets and protect themselves against crises. With a USAID-funded grant, Save the Children and Fondation Zakoura have adapted existing market research tools and designed simpler, more accessible tools for young people.  One particular tool, the “Money Flow” tool has been especially successful.   

The “Money Flow” tool is a participatory rapid appraisal tool that invites youth to visualize a young person in their community.  They draw the young person in the middle of the paper and decorate the drawing.  The facilitator shares that the young person they drew has some money and invites the group to brainstorm the sources of this money.  Once the group completes this activity, they are asked to determine the destination of this money.  In some cases the probing focuses on the extent to which young people control decisions over the destination and also is used to highlight the differences in use of money between young men and women.

In Egypt, Save the Children also used a simple mobility tool that invites young people to share where they enjoy spending time and why. This assessment found that young people living in rural areas of the country had access to resources at different times of the year and also many of the activities they enjoyed involved peers. These findings led to identifying more appropriate times and places to schedule activities as well as the need to incorporate a financial literacy component.

Save the Children worked with Pro Mujer, a women-focused Bolivian MFI, to design qualitative tools and develop the capacity of the team to apply them. For example, Pro Mujer found that young people knew about financial services but had negative perceptions due to the experience of someone else in their family or information from others.  As a result, Pro Mujer developed a product to respond to those needs.  Says one client, “I know you can get a loan from a bank and that you have to pay it back; some people can, and others have problems with this.”

USAID/Indonesia supported Save the Children to use youth-friendly market research and assessment tools to understand why young people dropped out of the formal school system.  The assessment found that conflict among classmates and poor ability of teachers to manage their classrooms were major reasons for leaving school. These responses were new to the program staff, and provoked a rethinking and redesign of program responses.

In Bangladesh, Save the Children’s work on market research informed the kinds of questions asked to adolescent girls in a baseline study.  The study moved away from questions such as “Do you save money?” and instead asked, “Where do you put money away?” This led to girls describing putting money in the ground or in bamboo poles.   Through the study, it was found that 20 percent of over 10,000 girls surveyed were saving money in some form; the issue then was not just to encourage girls to save, but to offer them safer means of saving.  Local partners Padhakep and Bangladesh Development Services, were surprised by this finding, and are now engaged in the design of safe savings options for girls.

The application of “youth friendly” market research tools in a variety of countries and contexts acknowledges that youth not only have access to resources, but they are also able to save.  By continuing to conduct market research and incorporate the findings into activity planning, USAID and their partners have the ability to meet the needs and address the challenges of working with vulnerable youth and their families.

USAID is a sponsor of the  Global Youth Enterprise Conference taking place September 15-16, 2008. Organized by Making Cents International, the conference will bring together 350 experts from the international youth enterprise, employment and livelihood community. This year’s themes will focus on market-driven approaches and effective methodologies and practices for monitoring, evaluating, and conducting impact assessments.  

This publication was produced for review by the U.S. Agency for International Development. It was prepared by Veronica Torres of Save the Children.
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The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the U.S. Government.