My Story

Girls’ education is emerging as one of the top priorities of the international development community. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that “educating girls is not an option, it is a necessity,” Much progress has been made in recent decades. The number of girls attending school, even in the poorest countries, has grown rapidly in the past 50 years In some developing regions, however, millions of girls still receive little or no education .. Of the more than one hundred million children in the world without access to primary schooling, 60 percent are girls, and in countries like Afghanistan, Niger, Nepal, and , female literacy is less than half that of males. Families suffer, too, if girls are not educated. Mothers with education use the knowledge they have acquired to improve the health of their children and other family members. Promoting girls’ education, therefore, involves changing attitudes across society as well as spending money on increasing the number of school places available to girls. Donors providing funding for education can help by insisting that their funds are used to educate girls as well as boys