YouthStart, a United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) initiative established in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation, aims to increase access to financial services for low-income youth in sub-Saharan Africa. The programme supports financial service providers (FSPs) to design, test and scale up sustainable services tailored to the needs of young people, while helping to create an enabling regulatory environment for young people to access the right financial and other services they need to make sound financial decisions, build a strong asset base, and create sustainable livelihoods for themselves. As of December 2014, over 514,000 youth (46 percent young women and girls) had saved close to $14 million either in the form of an individual savings account or a group-based savings mechanism; close to 72,000 had received an individual or a group loan to start up or expand their own business; and over 502,000 had participated in financial education sessions.