Author David Cook from Plan International with his baby daughter.
“The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.”
Former US President Jimmy Carter
For the past 10 weeks I have spent nearly every waking hour thinking about the baby girl who has brought so much joy to my wife and me. I marvel as my daughter’s health and bubbly personality grow daily, but she has also highlighted even more starkly for me the inequalities that exist in our world, particularly for girls.
As I look at my daughter – healthy, happy and full of hope for the future – I cannot escape the reality that in many ways the quality of her life now and in the years to come is a simple stroke of luck and geography. She will grow up with ready access to healthcare, education, freedom of choice and movement and countless life opportunities – the fulfilment of a wealth of rights that many of us in Australia often take for granted.
But she could easily have been born into a life of poverty and struggle just like millions of children around the world, many of whom face even larger obstacles to the fulfilment of their rights simply because they are girls.
And so I find myself confronted by a recurring question: "Why don’t girls around the world enjoy the same life chances that my daughter will experience?"
The quote from Jimmy Carter goes some way to answering the question. The privileges that my daughter will experience growing up in Australia aren’t a fluke – in many ways they’re the result of years of investment in the rights and opportunities of girls in our society. It’s actually a good news story: if it can be done here, it can surely be done for and with girls in the developing world too. We just need to get to work.
For much of 2009 I was part of a Plan International campaign called Because I am a Girl. Since the birth of my daughter, the campaign has become even dearer to me.
The campaign is based on a series of reports by Plan International that show that progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals – the goals set by the world’s governments in 2000 to halve world poverty by 2015 – are being hampered by a continued lack of investment in girls.
The 2009 Because I am a Girl report – the third in the series – focused on girls and economics, particularly in light of the global financial crisis. It showed how the global economic downturn is having a devastating effect on millions of girls who are already enduring the worst effects of poverty compounded by discrimination. But it also argued that investing in girls is one of the best ways to end poverty and create global prosperity – an investment that is currently blocked in many countries by persistent attitudes that girls are not as important as boys.
According to the report, investing in girls has a powerful effect on a family’s and community’s experience of poverty. For example, a girl who has received adequate education will grow into a woman who will have fewer children that are more likely to be healthy, well educated and break out of the cycle of poverty.
An extra year of school can increase a girl’s future wages by 10% to 20%; girls who attend secondary school make $US2000 more per year than girls who only attend primary school. Multiply that by the 1.6 million girls in Kenya who are not going to school and you can see the potential to increase that country’s national income by $US3.2 billion.
Add to this the amazing fact that a woman is likely to re-invest up to 90% of her income into her family (for men the figure is 30% to 40%) and you can see the powerful impact that better investment in girls could have for communities all around the world.
The report also highlights evidence that links a lack of investment in girls with poor economic growth. Recent World Bank Research shows that if the number of girls completing secondary education is increased by just 1%, a country’s annual per capita income growth is boosted by an average of 0.3%.
Clearly, the lack of investment in girls is not just a moral issue; it’s also a missed opportunity to sustain global prosperity. In simple terms, the reports and campaign argue that increasing our efforts to ensure greater and fairer investment in girls makes sense because it’s:
• Good for girls, who are the most disadvantaged on a global scale.
• Good for helping to break intergenerational cycles of poverty, with a positive impact for girls and boys.
• Good for economies, growth and global prosperity.
Through the Because I am a Girl campaign, Plan International Australia will continue to campaign for more to be invested in the development and rights of girls. I’ll be playing my part, with my little girl reminding me that it’s not enough that she thrives and develops while others like her are denied their rights and opportunities.
Read two Plan International case studies
Geeta's story, a 21-year-old now running her own cafe with the aid of Plan
Rangamma's story about working in a stone quarry with her father.
To support this campaign visit the Because I Am A Girl website and find out more, join the Facebook community and stay connected as this important campaign for the world’s girls builds momentum over the coming months and years.
Author David Cook is Media Officer for Plan International Australia.
