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Women in Development
GENDER INTEGRATION WORKSHOP HELD IN CAIRO, EGYPT
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EGAT/WID and USAID/Cairo recently collaborated on a five-day workshop on gender integration, which was supported by the STTA project. Topics ranged from indicator development to donor coordination to the gender dimensions of climate change. Learn more >
Photo: Nicholas Griffin, DevTech |
We are always looking for great images of women involved in and benefiting from USAID-funded activities. CLICK HERE to find out how your photos can help us educate the public about USAID's gender programs. |
Progress Requires Inclusive Participation
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is committed to providing development assistance that improves the lives of women,
men and children around the world. USAID has a special interest in the advancement of women worldwide and is working to improve women's
equality and empowerment. Not only because it is just, but because it is necessary for successful development.
Women are Key to Effective Development
It is important to engage the untapped energies and abilities of people, especially poor women, if lasting progress is to be made. Development assistance providers must recognize the pervasive additional obstacles that poor women face and give serious attention to those impediments as road blocks not only to women but also to effective national development.
Achieving Results
USAID's support for programs in democracy and legal reform, girls' education, maternal and child health, and economic growth improves the status of women and enhances their opportunities.
In each of these areas, the Agency has made significant progress.
- USAID has a specific focus on girls' education in 67 percent of its basic education programs.
- Over 60 percent of clients receiving loans from USAID-supported microfinance institutions are women.
- Nearly one-third of the clients receiving USAID-supported enterprise development services are women.
- USAID provided $27 million to support anti-trafficking activities in 30 countries in 2006.
- USAID supported development of legislation against domestic violence in Albania; landmark legislation to address sexual harassment in Benin; draft legislation on trafficking in persons in Mozambique; and proposed amendments to the existing family code in Madagascar.
Of particular concern to me is the plight of women and girls, who comprise the majority of the world’s unhealthy, unschooled, unfed, and unpaid. If half of the world’s population remains vulnerable to economic, political, legal, and social marginalization, our hope of advancing democracy and prosperity will remain in serious jeopardy.
– Hillary Rodham Clinton, Statement Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, January 13, 2009 |
In every area where progress has been made, however, much more remains to be done:
- Worldwide, 774 million adults lack basic literacy skills, as measured by conventional methods. Some 64% of them are women, a share
virtually unchanged since the early 1990s.
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3. UNESCO (2007) EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008. Education for All by 2015: Will we make it?
Paris: UNESCO. http://www.efareport.unesco.org
- Of the 72 million primary school aged children who do not attend school worldwide, 57 percent are girls; in addition, girls are
4 percent less likely than boys to complete primary school.4
4. The World Bank (2007) World Development Indicators 2007. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
http://www.worldbank.org/data/
- Seventy-two percent of the world's 33 million refugees are women and children.5
5. UNHCR (2006) UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2006 (provisional). Geneva: UNHCR.
http://www.unhcr.org/statistics.html
- According to U.S. Government-sponsored research completed in 2006, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders
annually. In addition, millions of victims are trafficked within their own national borders.
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6. U.S. Department of State (June 2007) Trafficking in Persons Report, p. 8. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State. http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/global_issues/human_trafficking/traffick_report.html
- International research consistently finds that women are more likely to be beaten, raped, or killed by a current or former partner than
by any other person, with most studies estimating that 20 to 50 percent of women experience partner violence at some point in their lives.
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7. Ellsberg, M. & Heise, L. (2005) Researching Violence Against Women: A Practical Guide for Researchers and Activists, p. 18. Washington, DC: WHO & PATH. http://www.path.org/files/GBV_rvaw_complete.pdf
- In developing countries, 1 in 61 women die during pregnancy and childbirth; in least developed countries, 1 in 17 die.
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8. UNICEF (2007) The State of the World's Children 2007. "Table 8: Women." New York: UNICEF. http://www.unicef.org/sowc07/report/report.php
More Gender Statistics
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Child Marriage
