Financial Literacy is Focus of MasterCard and Junior Achievement Alliance in Nigeria

MasterCard and Junior Achievement Nigeria announced today their joint alliance to provide financial education to young people in Nigeria through 20 secondary schools, impacting hundreds of students throughout the country.  The initiative is focused on building the youths’ skills in entrepreneurship, with financial literacy comprising a core component of the training.

Junior Achievement’s Girls Enterprise Program was created initially to develop students’ abilities to conceive, launch, and successfully build new businesses and covers a broad range of functional skill sets, such as business plan writing, raising capital, business operations, and the financial management of corporations and organizations.  One of the central components of the program is for all participants to form support groups among peers who are similarly situated in the training initiaitive.

This partnership is, in part, a response to Nigeria’s financial and economic statistics, which include an unemployment rate approaching 25 percent, which many believe is hampering the nation’s ability to achieve economic development success.  Moreover, the unemployment rate among young people is even higher, peaking over 45 percent, based on recent figures released by the Central Bank of Nigeria. It is the view of MasterCard, Junior Achievement, and other financial education proponents that raising the rates of financial literacy and providing tools, resources and training in entrepreneurship will help curb unemployment and direct Nigeria’s young people on a trajectory of positive employment and financial empowerment.

This partnership announced today is similar to many other major alliances that have been announcement and implement in recent months in many regions throughout the world.  This enthusiasm and focus being devoted to financial education should bode well for financial literacy in the months and years to come.