What's good for girls is good for boys, families and communities

International Board Chair Paul Arlman and Nigel Chapman, our International CEO, have written a letter to the editor of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in response to an article by Roger Bate called ‘Planting Seeds of Prosperity in Africa’:

Dear Roger Bate,

We read your article ‘Planting Seeds of Prosperity in Africa‘ (AEI, website November 2, 2009) with interest. You talk about a report released by the Legatum Institute referring to the 2009 Legatum Prosperity Index. The report concludes that the aid levels to the African continent have in fact remained high and steady in the last 50 years (amounting to a gigantic total of US$716 billion in a time period of 1960-2006) but it infers that that this mammoth aid does not seem to have worked.

The study then argues that the nine "building blocks" of prosperity – economic fundamentals, entrepreneurship and innovation, education, democratic institutions, governance, health, personal freedom, security and social capital – might hold the key to prosperity and happiness in Africa. This notion finds your approval and support.

As International Board Chair and CEO of a International non-governmental organisation Plan International, we beg to disagree.

We do not counter the theory of the nine building blocks, nor do we reject the fact that aid has not worked the way it should have. Rather we are deeply disappointed that in these nine building blocks there is no mention at all of women and girls as a country’s irreplaceable assets. The fact is that the African continent is faltering (as are other parts of the world) in sensibly investing in them and in ensuring that women and girls reach their full potential in their respective communities, town and cities, indeed in their countries and regions.

Plan’s 2009 annual report ‘Because I am a Girl – The State of the World’s Girls: Girls in the Global Economy’ strives to bring to light exactly this reality. Allow us to reiterate a few facts:

• An extra year of secondary schooling for adolescent girls can increase their future wages by 10 to 20 per cent.
• When a girl in the developing world receives 7 or more years of education, she marries 4 years later and has 2.2 fewer children.
• Men reinvest some 30-40 percent of income in the family, women reinvest 90 percent of income into the household.
• Economies not investing in girls have slower growth and reduced income (Source: David Dollar and Robert Gatti, World Bank economists).

In other words: what is good for women and girls is good for boys, families and communities and in the end good business.

If girls and young women have the opportunity to survive the first five years of their life, to finish school, and to take advantage of new jobs in the market place, they can change the world for the better.

In short: investing in girls is just smart economics.

Plan is striving to do bring the urgent attention of the world – general public, policymakers, businesses and women and girls themselves – to this fact through its Because I am a Girl campaign.

Best regards,
Paul Arlman & Nigel Chapman

Learn more about Plan's Because I am a Girl Campaign