Educate Girls and Transform the World
Educating girls is the single most powerful investment we can make to achieve a more prosperous, just, and peaceful future for our planet. Educating girls improves the wellbeing of communities and nations.
UNICEF has concluded that schooling girls benefits their future children as well as themselves – a “double dividend” from investments in girls’ education.
The unique contributions of educating girls include:
- Higher age at marriage
- Fewer unplanned pregnancies
- Greater utilization of health care and family services
- Improved health and survival rates for infants and children
- Higher family income
- More prosperous nations, higher gross domestic products (GDP)
If all girls who started secondary school in Kenya completed it, they would add US$27 billion to the Kenyan economy over their lifetimes, or 41% of annual GDP.
For more insight on the value of investing in girls’ education:
Cooper, Rachel. 2017. “Why It’s Imperative to Invest in Education for Adolescent Girls.” World Bank Blogs. https://blogs.worldbank.org/education/why-it-s-imperative-invest-education-adolescent-girls
The World Bank Group and Adolescent Girls’ Education Factsheet https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/girlseducation/brief/the-world-bank-group-wbg-and-adolescent-girls-education-factsheet
Chaaban, Jad, and Wendy Cunningham. 2011. Measuring the Economic Gain of Investing in Girls: the Girl Effect Dividend. Policy Research Working Paper. World Bank: Washington, D.C.
Levine, R. A. and Levine, S. and Schnell-Anzola, B. 2012. Literacy and Mothering: How Women’s Schooling Changes the Lives of the World’s Children. NY: Oxford UP.
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