* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Ensuring that women and men, boys and girls, all have the opportunity to fulfill their potential is vital if we are to create a more prosperous world. There’s no magic formula for getting there but sending more girls to quality schools and keeping them there longer comes very close.
“Western education is forbidden.” That’s a rough translation of Boko Haram, the extremist group in Nigeria responsible for kidnapping more than 270 schoolgirls, possibly selling them into “marriage” as part of its bloody quest to take control of the country.
This brazen abduction is unimaginably horrifying for the girls, their families, and communities. It has rightly sparked an international outcry, including Tweets by heads of state and government, UN agency chiefs, the American First Lady, and celebrities from Connie Britton to Mia Farrow—which one can only hope ratchets up pressure to save these children.
The deliberate kidnapping of schoolgirls recalls UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s words regarding the near-fatal shooting of Pakistan’s teenage activist Malala Yousafzai: “Through hate-filled actions, extremists have shown what frightens them the most: a girl with a book.” It should also serve as a reminder of the violence and inequality girls and women face around the world every day, mostly unremarked and unreported, and rarely if ever the topic of celebrity Tweets.
Next Wednesday, the World Bank Group will launch a new report which shows that despite recent advances, systematic differences in outcomes persist, often as a result of widespread deprivations and constraints uniquely and specifically among girls and women. Driven by discriminatory laws and social norms, they often violate women’s most basic human rights, and they are almost everywhere magnified and multiplied by poverty and lack of education.
Our report, Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity, focuses on several key areas: freedom from violence, control over sexual and reproductive health, ownership and control of land and housing, and voice and collective action. It notably explores the power of social norms in dictating how men and women can and cannot behave.
The report distills vast data and hundreds of studies to shed new light on constraints facing women and girls worldwide, from epidemic levels of gender-based violence to laws and norms that prevent them from owning property, working, and making decisions about their own lives. It argues that expanding women's agency—their ability to make decisions and take advantage of opportunities—is vital to improving their lives as well as the world we all share.
One striking finding is the powerful link between agency and education, with a focus on quality education.
Among countries with the most child marriages, for example, girls with limited schooling are up to six times more likely to marry young than girls who finish high school. In all regions, better educated women tend to marry later and have fewer children. Better educated women are less likely to live in poverty and less likely to be subjected to domestic violence. Enhanced agency is a key reason why children of better educated women are less likely to be stunted: Educated mothers have greater autonomy in making decisions and more power to act for their children’s benefit.
Expanding opportunities and amplifying the voices of women and girls isn’t a zero-sum game. Leveling the playing field for women and girls brings broad development dividends for men and boys, families, communities, and societies. Conversely, constraining women’s agency by limiting what jobs they can do or condoning gender-based violence, for example, can cause huge losses to productivity and income, also with broad economic repercussions. The data and evidence are clear.
Our interconnected and highly competitive world, with its increasingly stubborn pockets of extreme deprivation and truly globalized crises, demands full and equal participation by and opportunities for everyone. Ensuring that women and men, boys and girls, all have the opportunity to fulfill their potential and author their own lives is vital if we are to create more resilient, more prosperous world.
And while there’s no magic formula for getting there, sending more girls to quality schools and keeping them there longer comes very close.
It’s the alternative that’s frightening.
--Jeni Klugman is director of gender and development at the World Bank Group.
Follow the launch of Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity live on May 14 at 5:15 EST with Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, and UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
