To eliminate poverty and reduce reliance on development dollars, we need to empower women and girls.  Gender equality isn’t just a women’s issue—it’s everyone’s issue.  By educating girls and ensuring women have economic opportunities, USAID works toward better future outcomes for all people.

Investing in girls’ education

Ensuring that a nation’s girls are educated unlocks human potential, translating into a more productive workforce for that country. A recent study found that every year of secondary school education is correlated with a 10 percent increase in a girl’s future earning power.  If 10 percent more adolescent girls attend school, a country’s GDP increases by an average of 3 percent .

As laid out in the U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls, USAID, the State Department, the Peace Corps, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation are working together to use adolescence as a point to leverage development and diplomacy efforts. Positive interventions during adolescence can disrupt the cycle of poverty, and instead prepare entire country populations for future GDP growth and thriving economies.

Helping Women Open Businesses

Worldwide, women own or operate up to 33 percent of all private businesses, and women-owned enterprises grow faster than those owned by men and faster than businesses overall. And yet, only half of all women of working age, compared to three-quarters of men, are in the workforce. If the same number of women participated in the global economy as men, the world could grow in GDP by $12 trillion.

In developing economies, women are 20 percent less likely to have a formal bank account than men, and are substantially less likely to use savings and lending instruments. These means it is more difficult for women to start a businesses. USAID saw this challenge as an opportunity, and now e-payments are the default payment method for our programming and development assistance. Since switching from cash to e-payments, providers estimate that Bangladesh alone has saved 40,000 hours in staff time and $60,000 per year, while bringing thousands of previously unbanked women into the financial system.

Read the source article at USAID Impact