The
Last Virtual Volunteering
Guidebook available for
purchase as a paperback & an ebook.
Updated June 20, 2010
A free resource for nonprofit
organizations, NGOs, civil society organizations,
charities, schools, public sector agencies & other mission-based
agencies
by Jayne Cravens
More resources at coyotecommunications.com & coyoteboard.com (same
web site)
Empowering Women Everywhere - Essential
to Development Success
Empowering women anywhere, everywhere, is essential to development
success in any community, in any country. By empowerment, I mean:
primary and secondary education
vocational training
access to basic health services
equal rights to men (property ownership, wages, leadership roles, etc.)
safety for women to engage in all of these activities
Women and girls are undervalued all over the world. Millions of girls are
not tracked at all by their governments - there are no systems to record
their birth, their citizenship, or even their identity. The 2009 World
Economic Forum devoted one of its plenary sessions to the impact of
educating girls in developing countries for the first time ever, and noted
that only half a cent of every international development dollar currently
goes toward girls. "Women account for two thirds of global hours worked. Yet
they earn just one tenth of the world's income and own merely one percent of
the world's property." (International Rescue Committee, 2011)
I want to track data, research and articles that confirm that empowering
women is essential to development success. Hence the following list.
Some of what I note below is from lists compiled by The
Girl Affect. If you would like to refer other research and articles,
please contact me (no opinion pieces,
please; research and case studies only).
- When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of
education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children.
(United Nations Population Fund, State of World Population 1990.)
- An extra year of primary school boosts girls' eventual wages by 10 to
20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent.
(George Psacharopoulos and Harry Anthony Patrinos, Returns to Investment
in Education: A Further Update, Policy Research Working Paper 2881
[Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002].)
- Research in developing countries has shown a consistent relationship
between better infant and child health and higher levels of schooling
among mothers.
(George T. Bicego and J. Ties Boerma, Maternal Education and Child
Survival: A Comparative Study of Survey Data from 17 Countries, Social
Science and Medicine 36 (9) [May 1993]: 1207–27.)
- When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into
their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.
(Phil Borges, with foreword by Madeleine Albright, Women Empowered:
Inspiring Change in the Emerging World [New York: Rizzoli, 2007],
13.)
- Today, more than 600 million girls live in the developing world.
Girls Count, 14
(Population Reference Bureau, DataFinder
database, accessed December 20, 2007)
- More than one-quarter of the population in Asia, Latin America, the
Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa are girls and young women ages 10 to
24.
Girls Count, 15
(United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World
Population Prospects: The 2006
Revision and World Urbanization Prospects: The
2005 Revision.)
- The total global population of girls ages 10 to 24—already the
largest in history—is expected to peak in the next decade. Girls
Count, 14
(Ruth Levine et al., Girls Count: A Global Investment & Action
Agenda [Washington, D.C.: Center for Global Development, 2008].)
- Approximately one-quarter of girls in developing countries are not in
school.
(Cynthia B. Lloyd, ed., Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to
Adulthood in Developing Countries, Washington, D.C., National Academies
Press, 2005)
- Out of the world's 130 million out-of-school youth, 70 percent are
girls.
(Human Rights Watch, Promises
Broken: An Assessment of Children's Rights on the 10th Anniversary of
the Convention on the Rights of the Child, December 1999)
- One girl in seven in developing countries marries before age 15.
Girls Count, 41
(Population Council, Transitions
to Adulthood: Child Marriage/Married Adolescents, [updated May 13,
2008].)
- 38 percent marry before age 18.
Girls Count, 41
(Cynthia B. Lloyd, ed., Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to
Adulthood in Developing Countries [Washington, D.C.: National Academies
Press, 2005].)
- One-quarter to one-half of girls in developing countries become
mothers before age 18; 14 million girls aged 15 to 19 give birth in
developing countries each year.
Girls Count, 3 (United Nations Population Fund, State
of World Population 2005.)
- In Nicaragua, 45 percent of girls with no schooling are married
before age 18 versus only 16 percent of their educated counterparts. In
Mozambique, the figures are 60 percent versus 10; in Senegal, 41 percent
versus 6.
Girls Count, 44
(International Center for Research on Women, Too
Young to Wed: Education & Action Toward Ending Child Marriage,
2007.)
- A survey in India found that girls who married before age 18 were
twice as likely to report being beaten, slapped, or threatened by their
husbands as were girls who married later.
(International Center for Research on Women, Development Initiative on
Supporting Healthy Adolescents, 2005 analysis of quantitative baseline
survey data collected in 2004 in select sites in the states of Bihar and
Jharkhand, India)
- Medical complications from pregnancy are the leading cause of death
among girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide. Compared with women ages 20 to 24,
girls ages 10 to 14 are five times more likely to die from childbirth,
and girls 15 to 19 are up to twice as likely, worldwide.
(United Nations Children's Fund, Equality,
Development and Peace, New York, 2000)
- As of 2006, 75 percent of 15- to 24-year-olds living with HIV in
Africa are female, up from 62 percent in 2001.
Girls Count, 48
(Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, Keeping
the Promise: An Agenda for Action on Women and AIDS, 2006.)
- Women
and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Issues and Sources
by Brigitte Sorensen. 1998.
- Afghanistan
National Reconstruction and Poverty Reduction — the Role of Women in
Afghanistan's Future
The World Bank, Washington, DC. 2005.
- Rural
women: crucial partners in the fight against hunger and poverty
Statement by H.E. Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda.
- Gender
and Economic Growth in Uganda: Unleashing the Power of Women.
Directions in Development.
Ellis, Amanda, Mark Blackden, and Claire Manuel. World Bank, Washington,
DC. 2005
If you would like to refer other research and articles, please contact
me (no opinion pieces, please; research and case studies only).
Empowering
Women Everywhere - My Favorite Resources, a list of my favorite
resources for information about the empowerment of women and girls. If you
are looking to educate yourself on this issue, this
is where to start.
Also see Women's Access to Public
Internet Access, a resource I'm compiling to support the development
of women-only Internet centers/technology centers/etc., or women-only
hours at such public Internet access points, in developing and
transitional countries.
Read more about my own
women-focused/gender-inclusive work
Back to my development resources main page
Quick
Links
my home page
my consulting services
& my workshops & presentations
my credentials & expertise
my research projects
my book: The Last
Virtual Volunteering Guidebook
How to Support This Web Site & My Work
contact me or see
my schedule
Free Resources:
Community Outreach, With & Without Tech
Free Resources:
Nonprofit, NGO & other mission-based management resources
Free Resources: Technology
Tips for Non-Techies
Free Resources: Web
Development, Maintenance, Marketing for non-Web designers
Free Resources: For
people & groups that want to volunteer
linking to or from my web site
Coyote Helps Foundation
me on social media (follow me,
like me, put me in a circle, subscribe to my newsletter)
how to support my work & this
web site
Disclaimer: No guarantee of accuracy or suitability is made by the
poster/distributor. This material is provided as is, with no expressed
or implied warranty.
See this web site's privacy policy.
Permission is granted to copy, present and/or distribute a limited
amount of material from my web site without charge if the
information is kept intact and without alteration, and is credited to:
Otherwise, please contact me for
permission to reprint, present or distribute these materials (for
instance, in a class or book or online event for which you intend to
charge).
The art work and material on this site
was created and is copyrighted 1996-2020
by Jayne Cravens, all rights reserved
(unless noted otherwise, or the art comes from a link to another web
site).