FSD UgandaFrom Barriers to Opportunities: Designing Financial Services that work for Young Women.
By Anthea Paelo1, Rani Deshpande2 and Geoffrey Okidi3
Over the last decade, FSD Uganda has developed interventions targeting unserved and underserved groups such as women and youth, smallholder farmers, MSMEs, and refugees.
In the next five years, FSD Uganda’s strategy will place stronger focus on women, especially young women aged 16 to 35. The strategy recognises that young women face multiple additional challenges that require special focus. These women also exhibit diverse financial access and usage patterns, livelihood profiles, demographics and geographic locations.4 To ensure greater impact, it is therefore necessary to segment the broader women’s market and design more targeted interventions that respond to the specific needs of each group.
A growing body of evidence, including a recent CGAP review, shows that financial inclusion initiatives tailored to adolescent girls and young women improve financial attitudes, aspirations, plans, and behaviours. When financial inclusion is embedded into broader development programmes, it leads to positive outcomes in livelihoods, education, health, and psychosocial well-being. Empowering young women also reduces child mortality, increases employment, and promotes economic growth.
Designing specific products and services for young women can help financial service providers and the broader financial system better serve low-income customers. It compels stakeholders to address systemic barriers such as a lack of identification (IDs), limited phone access, and restrictive social norms, which also hold back many other unserved and/or underserved groups. Overcoming these challenges unlocks innovations in accessibility, affordability, and usability that benefit a much broader market. The business case for serving young women is based on the broader market potential it presents as well as by the evidence that women generally demonstrate better repayment behaviour and customer loyalty over time provided that the services genuinely meet their reeds.
FSD Uganda’s Action Research on Young Women’s Financial Inclusion (YWFI)
In early 2025, FSD Uganda launched a three-year action research programme to design impactful, human-centred financial solutions for young women. The programme began with a quantitative analysis of FinScope Uganda 2023 data, focusing on women aged 16–24. It traced how financial inclusion for this group has evolved over two decades, identifying barriers and enablers and revealing unserved and underserved segments. This blog highlights some of the insights from the analysis.
The Reality for Young Women in Uganda
Young women aged 16–24 make up 4.36 million people – around 18% of Uganda’s adult population. Despite their size the young women face a combination of social, economic, and structural barriers to financial inclusion. They are less likely than young men to own a phone (53% vs. 71%) or possess a National ID (44%). They are also more likely to be homemakers (29% vs. 8% of young men), less likely to be employed (41% vs. 49%), and more likely to have only primary education (64% vs. 54%).
In addition, young women contend with restrictive social norms, irregular incomes, and heavy care responsibilities, spending an average of 5.2 hours per day on unpaid work compared to 1.6 hours for men.
Despite these barriers, young women’s financial inclusion has been improving. More 16-24-year-olds are financially included today than the 16-24-year-olds five years ago. Over half own a mobile phone, save, and actively plan and budget, although most still keep their savings at home.
In addition, a 2024 study on gender norms conducted by FSD Uganda and CGAP found that the strength of selected gender norms is lower for young and unmarried women compared to their older and married counterparts. This creates an opportunity for financial services providers to meet their needs with fewer social barriers.
Portraits of Young Women’s Financial Lives
Our analysis of FinScope Uganda 2023 data identified five segments of young women, each with distinct financial behaviours, challenges, and opportunities. Several of these represent significant markets for financial service providers.
The quantitative analysis confirmed that young women are far from a homogeneous group. Their financial behaviours and needs vary significantly, requiring differentiated approaches. It also highlighted opportunities linked to mobile phone use, shifting gender norms, and the persistent gap between access and usage of financial services. Next, FSD Uganda will engage directly with the young women to validate these insights, explore opportunities, and identify the building blocks for inclusive products and services.
Designing products for young women is not a niche effort. Addressing the barriers they face can inform the financial system’s efforts in creating products and services that are accessible to all Ugandans. It also expands economic opportunities for these women as they enter their productive years and contributes to a broader pool of financial services customers, further strengthening Uganda’s overall financial ecosystem.
With the vast majority of Uganda’s population being youth and the current untapped opportunity available in serving women, designing for women is not only profitable for financial service providers, but it is essential for broader economic development.
REFERENCES
[1] Independent Research Consultant
[2] Independent Research Advisor
[3] Agriculture & MSME Finance Lead at FSD Uganda
[4] Deshpande, Rani, and Antonique Koning. 2023. “The Impact of Financial Inclusion on Young Women’s Well-being: A Survey of Evidence and Recommendations for Practitioners.” Working Paper. Washington, D.C.: CGAP. https://www.cgap.org/research/publication/impact-of-financial-inclusion-on-young-womens-well-being-survey-of-evidence
