A small investment in girls will reap huge rewards

22 September 2009: Global economic development and human rights for girls will be set back decades if the impacts of the financial crisis are ignored, warns a major new report from Plan.

As parents face job losses and reduced income, younger girls are being pulled out of school and sent to work to earn money for their families.

Failure to send girls to school means many are confined to dangerous, unskilled work - neglecting their earning potential and slowing a country’s recovery from the current financial crisis, says the ‘Because I am a Girl’ report.

Domestic servitude

The report finds that this often consigns them to a life of domestic servitude – so continuing a cycle of poverty as they are less likely to send their own children to school.

The global economic downturn also means girls in the developing world are the first to lose their jobs, may end up in the sex trade and are more likely to die young.

Huge rewards

“The message to developing countries is clear - investing in girls is a win-win situation. A small investment now will reap huge rewards in the future, for the girls, their communities, and their countries – especially as richer nations look to make savings on foreign aid during the current financial crisis,” said Plan Chief Executive Officer Nigel Chapman.

According to the report’s analysis of the latest OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) report, countries with high levels of institutional discrimination against girls and women are also the least developed.

Just a 1% rise in the number of girls attending secondary school boosts a country’s annual per capita income growth by 0.3%.

Action plan

Plan is now calling for a global 10-point action plan which includes providing girls with education, better jobs, access to land or property and leadership opportunities.

World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who has first-hand experience of poverty growing up in 1960s war-torn Nigeria on less than US$2 a-day, has welcomed the report.

It was only a strong family tradition of girls’ education that rescued Ms Okonjo-Iweala from this life. “Investing in girls is the right thing to do. It is also the smart thing to do,” she says.

Read the ‘Because I am a Girl’ report

Join Plan’s Because I am a Girl campaign