The Girl Effect

Why Should We Pay Attention to Girls?



Little research has been done to understand how investments in girls impact economic growth and the health and well-being of communities. This lack of data reveals how pervasively girls have been overlooked. For millions of girls across the developing world, there are no systems to record their birth, their citizenship, or even their identity.

However, the existing research suggests their impact can reach much farther than expected.

The Ripple Effect
• 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.)Population Trends
• Today, more than 600 million girls live in the developing world. Girls Count, 14(Population Reference Bureau, DataFinder database, http://www.prb.org/datafinder.aspx [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,” http://esa.un.org/unpp, and “World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision,” www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WUP2005/2005WUP_DataTables1.pdf.)

• 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].)Educational Gaps
• 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,” http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/promises/education.html [December 1999].)Child Marriage and Early Childbirth• One girl in seven in developing countries marries before age 15.Girls Count, 41(Population Council, “Transitions to Adulthood: Child Marriage/Married Adolescents,” http://www.popcouncil.org/ta/mar.html [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, http://www.unfpa.org/swp/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, http://www.icrw.org/docs/2006_cmtoolkit/cm_all.pdf [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 select sites in the states of Bihar and Jharkhand, India [survey conducted in 2004].)Health
• 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, http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/pub_equality_en.pdf [New York: UNICEF, 2000], 19.)
• 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,http://data.unaids.org/pub/Booklet/2006/20060530_FS_Keeping_Promise_en.pdf[2006a].)

girleffect.org

Bush bashing

Well in the next week or so we see the end of an era with the retirement of Dubya.

I can't resist but endulge in a little bush bashing with posting some of his most notorious mis-sayings, but according to Dubya - "we just misunderestimated him" (Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000)

50. "I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here." --at the President's Economic Forum in Waco, Texas, Aug. 13, 2002

46. "Tribal sovereignty means that; it's sovereign. I mean, you're a -- you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities." --Washington, D.C., Aug. 6, 2004 (Watch video clip)


45. "I couldn't imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah." --at a White House menorah lighting ceremony, Washington, D.C., Dec. 10, 2001 (Listen to audio clip)


44. "You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." --interview with CBS News' Katie Couric, Sept. 6, 2006


42. "I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president." --as quoted in Bob Woodward's Bush at War

37. "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." --Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27, 2000 (Listen to audio clip)


36. "Do you have blacks, too?" --to Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 2001


35. "This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating." --as quoted by the New York Daily News, April 23, 2002

33. "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." --Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 29, 2000


32. "I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound largemouth bass in my lake." --on his best moment in office, interview with the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, May 7, 2006


29. "This is an impressive crowd -- the haves and the have mores. Some people call you the elite -- I call you my base." --at the 2000 Al Smith dinner


28. "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." --LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000


27. "I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe -- I believe what I believe is right." --Rome, Italy, July 22, 2001


26. "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." --Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 (Listen to audio clip)

24. "I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it...I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn't yet...I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." --after being asked to name the biggest mistake he had made, Washington, D.C., April 3, 2004

22. "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter." --in parting words to world leaders at his final G-8 Summit, punching the air and grinning widely as those present looked on in shock, Rusutsu, Japan, July 10, 2008

16. "I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." --Washington, D.C. June 18, 2002

12. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere!" --joking about his administration's failure to find WMDs in Iraq as he narrated a comic slideshow during the Radio & TV Correspondents' Association dinner, Washington, D.C., March 24, 2004 (Read more)11. "I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office." --Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008


10. "Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" --Florence, South Carolina, Jan. 11, 2000

8. "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." --Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000 (Listen to audio clip)


7. "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense." --Washington, D.C. April 18, 2006 (Read more; listen to audio clip; watch video clip)


6. "There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on --shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again." --Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002 (Watch video clip)


5. "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." --Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004 (Watch video clip)


4. "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." --Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004 (Watch video clip)


3. "You work three jobs? ... Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." --to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005 (Listen to audio clip)


2. "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." --to FEMA director Michael Brown, who resigned 10 days later amid criticism over his handling of the Hurricane Katrina debacle, Mobile, Ala., Sept. 2, 2005 (Listen to audio clip; watch video clip)

These are from a list of 50 at http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushquotes/a/dumbbushquotes_3.htm

Gaza Crisis: Director, World Vision Jerusalem-West Bank-Gaza

Photo courtesy of Google Images:http://www.thedailybanter.com/tdb/2008/12/operation-cast-lead-a-familiar-story-in-gaza-.html

Opinion Editorial

Charles Clayton, National Director

World Vision Jerusalem-West Bank-Gaza

January 9, 2009

Children in Gaza are so frightened of dying that many have regular nightmares, wet themselves while asleep or awake and have lost the ability to socialize. Some are so traumatized by the rocket attacks, gunfire and sonic booms from Israeli aircraft flying just 250 metres above them that they bleed from their eyes. Television shows the damage to the innocents caught in the crossfire, but few people appreciate the invisible suffering experienced by the poor and defenceless, especially the children.

Remarkably, nearly half the 1.5 million people in Gaza are under the age of 14. In contrast, only about one of six Canadians is under 14. Gaza is truly a land of children. But these are young people without hope and who have lost all sense of normalcy.Almost all of Gaza’s children have experienced a funeral of a family member or neighbour because of the ongoing conflict. Today, they cower in fear, anticipating that the next bomb or shell is destined for them and their families. Long after the fighting has stopped, their trauma will remain.

The four-year-old son of one of our aid workers recently watched in horror near his kindergarten as a bomb victim’s leg fell out of an ambulance. How long, if ever, will it take that boy to recover from that ghastly vision?

Israeli children who live near Gaza suffer, too, from the same fears of incoming rockets. They, too, experience trauma. But there is a monumental difference. Israelis benefit from a sophisticated healthcare system, one of the best in the world. These circumstances have led to Israeli expertise in treating the psychological as well as the physical wounds caused by living in an almost constant state of war.

Gaza, in contrast, is one of the poorest regions on the planet. As a senior World Vision official, I have visited many of the nearly 100 developing nations in which we operate. None have worse conditions than Gaza.

Eighty per cent of Gaza’s children depend on food aid. More than half of them do not have access to running water. Families that do must boil it to make it drinkable. That’s almost impossible now with severe fuel shortages as a result of the fighting and an 18-month-long Israeli blockade.
World Vision typically works with the marginalized; those who need help the most, especially women and children. Our organization has worked in the occupied territory since 1975. In Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, where we operate a development program, one-third of the families live in extreme poverty. They are unable to adequately feed, clothe or educate their children. In this community, the water quality is so poor that 95 per cent of the residents had to buy drinking water even before the latest hostilities began.It no longer matters who started the current round of fighting, or the last round, or the round before that. Both sides are being diminished by their adherence to “tit-for-tat” violence. Clearly, the political and military strategies of these perennial combatants have failed.

Meanwhile, people are trying to maintain their dignity in terrible conditions. Children are freezing in the dark as nighttime temperatures approach zero. Families are unable to produce heat inside their homes and have no windows to keep out the cold. Their windows have been either blasted away or are kept open so that they will not be blasted away.

Canada’s contribution last week of $4 million in emergency assistance is a welcome initiative, but more is needed. Three hundred trucks carrying food, water, medicine and other essentials must cross into Gaza every day just to maintain the population in survival mode. To start building a society that is self-sufficient would require some 500 trucks a day. In December, before the latest hostilities, Israel allowed a daily average of 4.7 aid trucks to cross into Gaza, and now even less is getting through.

Canada and other nations must stand up for Gaza’s children and press for a sustainable ceasefire that allows unimpeded access for humanitarian supplies. At the same time, they should work hard for a long-term resolution to the conflict. Words will no longer suffice.World Vision and the 75 other NGOs operating in the region do more than provide the basics of life. They also represent a vision for the future based on humanitarian values. Both fair-minded Israelis and Palestinians crave such a vision. They are desperate for hope.

Canada can offer such hope by supporting meaningful peace initiatives that will stop the killing, the hunger and the horrific trauma that has been inflicted on the region’s innocent children. People of good will, regardless of their politics or whether they are Muslim, Jew or Christian, must come together to press for a better solution than ongoing violence.

There are millions of such people. It is time they spoke up or shouted, simply, “Enough. This must stop!”

Charles Clayton is World Vision National Director for Jerusalem-West Bank-Gaza

Long time...no posts

Well a post from this blog is well overdue and I know find myself in the grip of new year's resolutions, and commit to completing at least the occassional blog post!

I must first start by singing the praises of Google and their Google reader. I can now keep track of new, stories, research and friends thoughts from across the net - and feel at times like a digtial virgin enjoying the finds and wonders of web 2.0.

I think I plan to expand the so far limited reach of my solitary post, which was originally intentioned to begin a great flurry of my political/spiritual/theological stream of consciousness! However, climate change must have quickly dried up this stream and now I have decided to try and expand the scope of my musings to basically...anything! That's right I plan to post on just stuff I come across in my work, life, reading etc and hopefully that will at least get me in the habit of writing posts.

Well, wishing anyone who bothered to keep their link to this optimistic blogger a happy new year!