“The sooner you save, the better off you’ll be in life, wherever you live, at whatever age you start,” said Sophie Romana, director of community finance at Oxfam America: “Saving is the key.” Microsavings groups—informal community-based financial pools–can help vulnerable communities build resilience, said representatives from support organizations CARE International, Oxfam America, and the Grameen Foundation  at a Wilson Center event on June 29, 2017.

“The aspirations of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs are really high, and the data that will enable that have a long way to go,” said Rachel Snow from the United Nations Population Fund at a Wilson Center event on July 14, 2017.

“It’s essentially an issue of a lack of viable alternatives,” said Quentin Wodon, lead economist for the World Bank’s Education Global Practice at a recent event on child marriage at the World Bank. “We have to create those alternatives.” Wodon co-presented the results of a new research study, “At What Cost? The Economic Impacts of Child Marriage,” by the World Bank Group and the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).