Why girls
Improve a girl’s life and many more lives benefit: her brothers, sisters, parents and beyond. As an educated mother, an active citizen and an ambitious entrepreneur, or prepared employee, she can break the cycle of poverty.

Yet, despite her proven potential, in today’s developing countries she is more likely to be uneducated, a child bride, exposed to HIV/AIDS. And about half a cent of every international development dollar is directed to her; 99.4 percent of funding goes elsewhere. The world is missing out on a tremendous opportunity for change.

Our goal is to innovate for and with girls, creating conditions that support and value girls during their adolescent years before it’s too late for them — and for us.

Wasted Potential
When she reaches adolescence, a girl’s day turns to fetching water and wood rather than learning to read and write. She takes care of family members rather than herself. For families who have nothing else, she is a commodity, to be married off or sold.

Nearly half of girls are married before they turn 20. The same number bear children while still children themselves. Half of sexual assaults are against girls younger than 15. In sub-Saharan Africa, 75 percent of HIV-infected youth are female. When girls’ lives are limited, everyone loses. Families, communities and entire economies are all stunted when half their human potential is squandered.

 Opportunity?
Evidence shows that bolstering girls’ health, education and prosperity will build prospects for her family and her country’s economic prosperity. Tap her potential and the world benefits:

• Ensure she has seven or more years of education and she will marry four years later and have 2.2 fewer children.

• When 10 percent more girls go to secondary school, the country’s economy grows by 3 percent.

• When an educated girl earns income she reinvests 90 percent in her family, compared to 35 percent for a boy.

• When women have the skills to participate in public life, government corruption declines.

Fighting poverty has no easy answers, but there are unturned stones. The girl effect is a new hope, an investment with exponential returns. Our challenge? Working together to set that cycle in motion.

Check out the Girl  effect website and watch the video www.girleffect.org