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On World Poverty Day—Women Hold the Key

This year marks almost the halfway point in the 15-year time-span set in 2000 for the world to realize eight ambitious targets, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Still a millennium away, it seems, is goal number one, eradicating extreme poverty. Much more progress could be made, however, if world leaders focused on women. Worldwide, women are still disproportionately affected by poverty. Yet these very women—often seen as “victims”—hold the key to solving the poverty puzzle.

In the United States alone, 21 million of the 37 million Americans living in poverty are women. According to the United Nations World Food Program, seven out of ten of the world’s hungry are women and girls. For these women, poverty means not only a lack of income but lack of control over whatever income they might have, as well as a denial of essential dignity and autonomy. This injustice stems from many conditions: unequal access to resources and capabilities—such as education, skills, land and other property—as well as job discrimination and a stifled political voice.

To understand how empowering women alleviates poverty, we can look to the East Asian “economic miracle” spanning 1965 to 1990. During that period, gender gaps in education were closed; access to family planning was expanded; women delayed childbearing and moved into the work force in increased numbers. Growing economic power for women correlated strongly to the rise of this region. It holds clues for what could happen if policy makers and non-profits directed more funding toward programs for women and girls.

What might this shift look like? In Memphis, Tennessee, the city housing authority is working with the Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis, Memphis Le Bonheur Healthcare and a host of generous funders on a project called Memphis HOPE. The project will revitalize two public housing communities, where 90% of households are headed by women, to provide jobs and job training as well as health services. Residents will return not just to transformed homes, but also to transformed lives.

This collaborative approach to empowering women is echoed by Tewa, a women’s philanthropy in Nepal. Many women there have no property except their dowry—represented by the gold bangles they wear. When Tewa first started about a decade ago, soon after the UN World Conference on Women in Beijing, the women who led it despaired at their lack of funds to fuel support for women in the community. Then they realized that they wore their wealth on their arms—so they took their bangles off and used them to start their organization. With a motto of “self-reliant development,” Tewa works in particular with rural women’s groups and trains volunteers to raise money locally to sustain the program.

When women are afforded the equality of opportunity that is their basic right, the results are striking for society as a whole. The Economist estimates that over the past decade, gains in women’s work worldwide have done even more to fuel the global economy than has the stunning growth of China (“A Guide to Womenomics,” April 12, 2006).

We know what is possible when women are recognized as agents of change. To realize this vision we must remove obstacles such as discriminatory ownership and inheritance laws and allow women to embark on asset building.

Leadership is key. Policy makers hold the levers to vast and rapid change, the kind necessary to advance toward the Millennium Goals. Poverty is overcome when women are in public leadership positions. Evidence from Scandinavia shows policies and budgets are more equitable for women when women lead governments.

Empowering women at all levels vastly reduces poverty. Imagine the possibilities: communities thrive, children learn and become valuable “human capital” in the competitive global environment of the future, families hold together, crime declines, and all of us feel safer and less fearful of one another. I do not see this as a pie-in-the-sky pipedream. I see it as possible through such work as ours at the Women’s Funding Network. We are living that vision.

This day, observed by tens of millions as World Poverty Day, poses the question, what’s to be done? On a macro scale, more women must lead, and leaders must recognize the untapped potential of women on the ground. And the virtual world allows each of us to “take a stand” while remaining seated in front of a computer screen. 



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