Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke at the August 24 launch of the book “Critical Issues in Asset Building in Singapore’s Development.” Professors S. Vasoo and Bilveer Singh at the National University of Singapore (NUS) edited the book. The lead chapter is by Michael Sherraden, director of the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis.
Li Zou, the Center for Social Development’s international director, participated in two high-profile events this summer in Beijing.
On February 8, Fred Melch Ssewamala, PhD, a renowned social and economic development scholar, was installed as the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor at the Brown School of Social Work.
The book “Asset-Building Policies and Innovation in Asia” – a valuable resource for students and scholars of Asian social policy – is now available in paperback.
The Global Social Development Innovations research center will focus on developing community-driven initiatives that address economic security, workforce development, financial inclusion, social protection, health and education.
A researcher from CSD’s sister center in South Africa met with CSD staff members recently. Jacqueline Moodley is a research psychologist and researcher at the Centre for Social Development in Africa at the University of Johannesburg.
Building on a longtime working history, leadership from the Center for Social Development formally advised the Israeli government in May on best practices for implementing the country’s new law to confer universal savings accounts on children born in Israel. The law takes effect in January 2017.
Top Ghana officials, representatives from more than 20 financial institutions and practitioners met in April in Accra, Ghana, to learn about YouthSave research findings and how they could encourage young people to open bank accounts and save.
We are pleased to share news from and highlight ongoing collaborations with our global partners the Centre for Social Development Asia, at the National University of Singapore, and the Centre for Social Development in Africa, at the University of Johannesburg.
The Singapore government announced on March 24 that it significantly expanded Child Development Accounts as of that date.
Michal Grinstein-Weiss, associate director of the Center for Social Development, spent part of December traveling in Israel on an important mission: to spread the word about how Israel can best implement its new law to provide universal child savings accounts known in the United States as Child Development Accounts, to all newborns.
In 2010, researchers in the vast YouthSave Initiative started investigating whether low-income youth can build savings in the developing countries of Colombia, Ghana, Kenya and Nepal. Now their findings are summarized in a newly released report.
YouthSave researchers gathered recently in Washington, D.C., to discuss what they learned over five years about how to provide scalable saving mechanisms to low-income youth—and what their findings could mean for youth development and financial inclusion.
Israel’s parliament will consider a state budget this fall that includes funding for long-term savings accounts for all newborns, a proposal authored by Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD, the associate director of the Center for Social Development, and based on research efforts led by Michael Sherraden, PhD, the director of CSD.
Most young people in Sub-Saharan Africa are not saving money, and an article in the journal Global Social Welfare explains what helps or hurts them in their efforts.
A groundbreaking project examining the attitudes and practices of young people in developing economies toward saving money has led to new findings that confirm and challenge assumptions about youth saving at formal financial institutions.
Singapore’s innovative response to its rough and vulnerable beginning has shaped the first 50 years of the island country, Michael Sherraden said Wednesday, speaking to a crowd gathered at the National University of Singapore for his public lecture marking Singapore’s 50th Anniversary as an independent nation.
The Singapore launch of the Next Age Institute is on Monday, February 23, at the National University of Singapore. The event will feature Singapore’s Senior Minister of State Amy Khor as the guest of honor.
Asian scholars, practitioners and policymakers share lessons about asset-building policies in Asia and chart the future in the new book “Asset-Building Policies and Innovations in Asia.”
Children in four developing countries saved more than $1.8 million during the YouthSave initiative, one of the largest scientific studies of the effect of savings on people ages 12 to 18.
Li-chen Cheng, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Social Work at National Taiwan University, has rejoined the Brown School for a six-month sabbatical. Between 1990 to 1995, Dr. Cheng studied for her Ph.D. from 1990 to 1995 and worked on projects at CSD.
The Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University in St. Louis recognizes that asset-building policies in Asia offer important lessons in lifelong wealth and retirement security. International interest in these policies, particularly regarding aging populations, has prompted a book published in Chinese and one forthcoming in English.
Michael Sherraden, PhD, George Warren Brown Distinguished University Professor and director of the Center for Social Development at the Brown School, has been named the inaugural S. R. Nathan Professor at the National University of Singapore.
Low-income youth in developing countries will save their money in a formal account when given the right opportunity.
The Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis and long-time partner Peking University in Beijing have begun collaborating on a new endeavor: Savings accounts for children with disabilities in China.
Brown School alumna Molly Wimonmat Srichamroen has created a first-of-its-kind children’s savings program in her native Thailand, using knowledge she gained at the Center for Social Development. Srichamroen was also a scholar in Washington University’s McDonnell International Scholars Academy.
A special issue of “Economics of Education Review” marks the first comprehensive set of studies that link assets and educational attainment. Research provides evidence that college savings should be included in policies for educational financing.
The Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis partnered with Peking University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University to host a conference on strategies and innovations for asset building. This conference, held at Peking University in mid-November, reviewed research on asset building initiatives, a growing interest throughout Asia.
The Conference on Lifelong Asset Building: Strategies and Innovations in Asia, taking place this weekend in Beijing, will harness the experiences and brainpower of leading scholars, policy makers, practitioners, corporate leaders and funders from around the world.
Representatives from the Center for Social Development at Washington University recently traveled halfway around the world to meet with colleagues from the YouthSave Consortium, and had the unique opportunity to talk with Nepalese youth and learn more about their savings experience.
Do Ghanaian youth have money? How do they get it? What do they do with it? These are questions we are beginning to answer in YouthSave using data from a baseline survey of over 6,000 in-school youth.
The Center for Social Development at Washington University’s Brown School will host a Symposium on International Research and Innovation on April 17, 2012, to examine the process and experiences of building international research partnerships and highlight innovations in economic empowerment and financial inclusion in international settings.
Our Integrative Case Studies, conducted by research partners in the four YouthSave countries in collaboration with the Center for Social Development, aim to capture the contextual factors that will affect YouthSave outcomes and operations.
Available evidence suggests that youth savings has the potential to improve the well-being of low-income and vulnerable youth, but globally, the number of youth savings programs is relatively small.
CSD congratulates its research partner, Seoul Welfare Foundation, for winning the 2010 United Nations Public Service Award in the category of “Improving the delivery of public services” for its leadership of the Seoul Hope-Plus Savings Accounts project.
The MasterCard Foundation calls the five-year YouthSave project,“a landmark, global research initiative that will test how to sustainably deliver savings services to low-income youth in the developing world.”
The forum will be held on May 6, 12:30-6:00 PM (ET) at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC, and will be accessible to all via a live webcast.
CSD director Michael Sherraden and Margaret Sherraden, CSD research professor, were in high demand when they spent the fall semester of 2009 in Asia.
The availability of savings products for young people, especially in the developing world, remains extremely limited despite demand for safe and regulated institutions, a large potential market, and growing evidence about the potential of savings to benefit youth.
The research project will focus on the impacts of one of the Foundation’s major social programs, a matched savings program called the Hope Plus Savings Account Program, which is modeled on Individual Development Accounts in the United States.
A visit from members of the Seoul Welfare Foundation in early May will mark the official launch of a research collaboration between the Foundation and the Center for Social Development.
The World Council of Credit Unions recently launched an innovative online campaign that collects contributions from individuals in the developed world to benefit first-time savers in developing countries.
A report, conducted by researchers at the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, investigates a matched savings program in Peru targeted at rural women, the Puno-Cusco Corridor Development Project.