Giving Doctor - Giving to Women

Q: “I like the idea of giving aid to women but is that discriminatory?”

For decades, pundits have criticised foreign aid efforts for trapping the poor in a cycle of welfare dependency, entrenching dictators, destroying the entrepreneurial efforts of locals or dissipating donations into bureaucratic costs.

Increasingly, aid organisations around the world have been responding by establishing initiatives that target females – adolescents in particular – to ensure more even distribution of food, education, income and healthcare.

In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the world learnt a valuable lesson about this emerging ideology. The United Nations World Food Program (UNWFP) made a policy decision to prioritise women at food distribution sites because women and children are most vulnerable and generally get pushed aside by the men.

Relief workers distributed women-only food coupons to be redeemed at 16 sites around the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, in the belief that food is shared more fairly by women. Instead of violent, loud and chaotic crowds clamouring for food, with men trampling women and children to get to the front of the queue, women began forming polite and orderly lines at women-only sites.

Giving to women – an emerging trend

•  Aid organisations and donors including Plan International, The Nike Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, the Coalition for Adolescent Girls, the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood and the Global Business Coalition are all championing the rights of young girls around the world

•  Initiatives include those that put resources into the hands of girls, break poverty cycles, build sustainable careers and provide education

•  When a woman in the developing world is healthy, her community’s health will improve as maternal mortality and child malnutrition drop and HIV rates decline

•  Research has shown that bolstering a girl’s health, education and prosperity will build prospects for her family and her countr y’s economic prosperity

The myths

•  Women excel in the domestic domain but are not capable of wielding real power

•  Woman can look after their families but are not good at understanding the big picture or looking after the interests of a country

•  Complex and deeply held attitudes and traditions that leave girls in the developing world unsupported, vulnerable and trapped in cycles of poverty are immutable

Some facts

•  There are 600 million adolescent girls in the developing world and less than two cents in every international aid dollar is directed to them

•  An adolescent girl in the developing world is more likely to be uneducated, a child bride or exposed to HIV/AIDS

•  Approximately one - quarter of girls in developing countries are not in school

•  75% of 15-24 year olds living with HIV in Africa are female, a figure that has risen 62% since 2001

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

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

•  Joblessness among Ethiopian women costs the national economy $125 million

•  Kenya would gain $27 billion in potential income per generation if its female secondary school dropouts continued their education

•  86% of India’s 84.6 million girls aged 15-24 are jobless. If adolescent girls were employed at the same rate as males their age , India could add $53.2 billion to its GDP

•  Medical complications from pregnancy are the leading cause of death among girls aged 15-19 worldwide. In the West African country Niger, a woman has about a one-in-seven lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy complications

•  Tens of thousands of young woman in Africa and Asia are suffering from obstetric fistulas, childbirth injuries that leave the mother incontinent, sometimes paralysed and with severe infection. These women, whose conditions could be rectified with a simple and inexpensive operation, become social pariahs because of the terrible odour associated with the condition

Source: UNICEF & UNAIDS

Women for Women in Africa (WFWIA) – A local initiative

Established by Melbourne-resident Marguerite Ryan seven years ago, WFWIA aims to empower the women and children of Kibera , Nairobi.

Kibera is the second largest urban slum in Africa. More than 1 million people live in an area roughly 10 times the size of the MCG. Without proper streets, electricity, gas, garbage collection or water, Kibera is also one of the most dangerous places to live for an adolescent girl.

Ryan’s organisation has provided educational opportunities to more than 1500 girls since its inception. Today WFWIA supports approximately 300 primary and secondary school students.

Ryan staunchly supports the decision to put aid relief in the hands of women. “If you help one woman you help a whole community,” she explains. “Women are the hearts of their families. They look after their children, they want to do everything they can to make sure their children have a chance in life, have an education, have a chance to make something of themselves.”

GIVE NOW TO WFWIA

The Girl Effect – a case study

Created by the Nike Foundation, with the support of the NoVo Foundation, the United Nations Foundation and the Coalition for Adolescent Girls, the Girl Effect is establishing programs for adolescent girls in developing countries around the globe. The organisation believes adolescent girls are uniquely capable of raising the standard of living in the developing world.

The Girl Effect has established programs in countries including India, China, Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya and Bangladesh. The organisation believes in the “ripple effect” – the powerful social and economic change brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate.

In Bangladesh, the development organisation BRAC has provided training in life skills, income generation and microloans to approximately 50,000 girls. Many of them are going on to start small businesses, stay in school and support their families ’ needs.

The men in Bangladesh are sitting up and taking notice; women with money are good for villages. They are also leasing land to girls, providing them with unprecedented economic opportunities.

►WATCH THE GIRL EFFECT VIDEO