WUNRN
Adolescent Girls
Initiative - World Bank
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For the first time in 39 years, the World Economic Forum (WEF) included a plenary session on adolescent girls in its 2009 annual meeting. In the midst of the worst global financial crisis for decades, are world leaders in their right mind to focus on girls? Yes, absolutely. Two decades of research have shown that investing in adolescent girls is a highly effective and sustainable poverty-reducing initiative. And yet, the potential of 500 million adolescent girls and young women living in developing countries remains largely untapped, at a loss for them, their countries and future generations. Where resources are scarce, young girls are often last in order for schooling and first in order for household work. And all too often, when they attend school, they are forced to leave at a young age to marry and have children, wiping out chances to earn an income and fully contribute to the economy. The NGO BRAC estimates that in some regions of Bangladesh almost 90 percent of girls marry before age 18 and every year more than 1 million girls between 10 and 18 give birth. BRAC estimates a resulting loss of US$1,233 in foregone income every year for every one of these girls—almost three times the gross national income per capita in Bangladesh. On the other hand, when a girl is given the opportunity to study, she has a good chance of finding employment, earning an income and becoming financially independent, all of which improves her life. But the benefits do not end there: studies show that she is likely to reinvest about 90 percent of her earnings into her family’s wellbeing, bettering the lives of those around her. She will also marry and have children later in lifeand have gained knowledge that allows her to keep her children healthy and educated,. These immediate effects contribute to slowing population growth, which in turn impacts everything from health to climate change to the economy. In this way, investing in girls can be a key factor in breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty. This is why world leaders put adolescent girls on their agenda, and why the plenary session “The Girl Effect on Development” was the fourth most attended event of the WEF’s 2009 Annual Meetings. The session brought together Nike. Inc CEO Mark Parker, Gates Foundation Co-Chair Melinda French Gates, World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, CARE President and CEO Dr. Helene Gayle, UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman, Indonesian Minister of Trade Mari Pangestu, and Grameen Bank Founder and Nobel Prize Laureate Professor Yunus. During the session, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala echoed World Bank President Robert Zoellick’s and Vice President Danny Leipziger’s shared belief: “Investing in women is smart economics, and investing in girls, catching them upstream, is even smarter economics. If you invest in girls, if you educate girls, if you get girls into jobs, you solve so many problems.” Mark Parker, whose company, Nike. Inc, established the Nike Foundation that invests in girls in developing countries, added that girls are “the part of the world's population that could make the biggest impact if supported with economic opportunities.” The World bank’s Gender Action Plan and the Nike Foundation have been working together to improve life chances of adolescent girls in developing countries through the Adolescent Girls Initiative launched last October, please see box. Professor Yunus, whose organization, the Grameen Bank, gives micro loans to women, gave a striking example illustrating the fact that girls will excel if only given the opportunity. One of his Bank’s initiatives is Grameen Shakti, a company that sells solar energy in villages. Grameen Shakti recruited exclusively girls and trained them to build and maintain the solar energy systems in their villages. Not only have the girls gained the respect of their communities as “Grameen Engineers,” but Grameen Shakti is one of the largest growing renewable energy companies in the developing world. Thanks to this success, Grameen Bank is planning a similar initiative in healthcare, where young women will be trained as nurses and paramedics to run community-based health management centers focused on both treatment and prevention. As the session came to its end, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took the microphone. "Raise your hand," she said, "if you now understand and believe in why we must invest in girls." Everyone in the audience raised their hand, perhaps a hopeful sign for girls and, indeed, for a crisis-stricken world.
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