This post was passed on to me in an Email from Mel - one of our excellent SHineSA workers.
Investing in educating girls [This is the print version of story
PM - Monday, 2 February , 2009 18:26:00
Reporter: Emma Alberici
MARK COLVIN: The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland has ended with no decision about specific strategies for dealing with the financial meltdown. One thing the forum did manage to achieve this year was to keep the fight against poverty on the agenda at a time when the developed world is struggling for its own economic survivalThere were few celebrity diplomats at the Swiss ski resort this year, instead the crowds were drawn to the Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus . He's the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and acknowledged the father of microfinance.He argued that helping adolescent girls could turn out to be the biggest contributor to economic growth Europe correspondent Emma Alberici spoke to some of the women at the forum.EMMA ALBERICI: The session I just attended was called the "Girl Effect". And when registration opened here four days, tickets to this event were all allocated within minutes. It might have something to do with the calibre of the speakers who are there like Melinda Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. MELINDA GATES Right before the World Economic Forum I came from Tanzania, Ethiopia. A young girl, if she has a baby before the age 20, she is five times more likely to die than she is in her 20s. So we need to start talking to girls at a very young age, not age 15, you need to talk to them at age 10 and age 12 about family planning.EMMA ALBERICI: And here's living proof of what investing in women can achieve.HELENE D. GAYLE: The Honourable Mari Elka Pangestu, Minister of Trade for Indonesia.MARI ELKA PANGESTU: Yes. Thank you. I grew up in a very traditional family. My mother was always telling me, "Don't be so smart, don't show that you're smart or you'll never get married, you'll never get a boyfriend," and so on. That was how my household was. I wanted very badly to do well in school. I wanted to do better than the boys, I had a very competitive spirit, but my mother was always telling me the opposite. My mother also didn't want me to do a PhD. She said, "For sure you'll never get married if you get a PhD in economics." So I had a very, very insightful father who from the age of 10 he said to me, "You have to do well in school, because you have to be financially independent, no matter what. Even if you get married, it doesn't mean that you're going to be financially secure. Your husband can die, you can get divorced." So the fights were always between my mum and dad and my dad always supported me until I finished my PhD. And because I have the chance, I became the first woman to have a PhD in economics in Indonesia.NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA: My name is Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, managing director at the World Bank. We've done enough studies that show that when you invest in a women, a girl, you actually have the greatest impact on the family. Because women spend 90 per cent of their income on their households in comparison to men who spend about 30 to 40 per cent in many countries. If a family's out of a job, it's probably better to train and educate the woman because she's going to have a better impact on the wealth of the household. So in this crisis I think we need to think carefully when we're designing safety-net programs to help people cope with the crisis. Not just to think in terms of the men.EMMA ALBERICI: But in many of the countries that you were talking about today, there is a cultural hurdle, isn't there? That women are simply not allowed to work, or not allowed to assume that dominant position in the household because in some respects in might insult the husband?NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA: Of course, yeah. Many developing countries and developed there is a cultural hurdle. I mean, look at us here in Davos. How many panels had women?EMMA ALBERICI: Not many…NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA: Virtually none. So it's not just a developing country problem.MARIA EITEL: I'm Maria Eitel, and I'm the president of the Nike Foundation. If we want to solve poverty and break this inter-generational, we should invest in girls before they're pregnant, before they're married, before they have HIV, then we solve all these problems before we have to spend money on them afterwards.EMMA ALBERICI: Are you concerned that during these harsh times, even companies like your own need to rein in spending and perhaps these sorts of philanthropic causes are the ones that are going to suffer?MARIA EITEL: I think we're even more committed in this environment, because when you have more limited dollars, every dollar has to be spent with the greatest thoughtfulness. And an investment in an adolescent girl; if you want to solve climate change, you're never going to solve climate change if you don't deal with population growth. And girls are at the centre of that. If you want to deal with the issues of water, if you want to deal with the issues of global health, HIV, the greatest infection rates. Seventy per cent of new infections of HIV are adolescent girls in Africa.MARK COLVIN: Maria Eitel, president of the Nike Foundation, speaking to Emma Alberici.
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