Dr. Urvashi Sahni speaks at 2012 Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting

When looking to reduce global poverty and improve long-term economic outcomes, there are very few investments better than the investment in girls’ education. Improving access to quality education provides a strong foundation for personal development and empowerment, which leads to a plethora of benefits, including improvements in health and increased national economic growth. Building upon earlier discussions on this topic, this session will discuss past progress, examine how to build productive partnerships, and facilitate cross-sectoral collaborations in order to ensure that efforts in this space result in a successful and healthy transition to an empowered and productive adulthood for all girls.

Breakout session was entitled “Empowering Girls Through Education”, Nobel Peace laureate, Leymah Gbowee (Founder and President of Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa) advocated for making schools safer for girls. Ms. Gbowee also noted the problem of retention rates for girls in school, and stated that educational budgeting is often the smallest sector of government funding in many countries. During this session, Abhijit Banerjee, co-founder of MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), also stressed the need to get families to believe that school is useful, as expectations are often low and people in developing nations “don’t always believe that schools can deliver.” He also stressed the importance of establishing women as role models for children and their families, and referenced a study in India where a local government position was reserved for a woman, and how a rise in school attendance of local girls was seen as a result.

Breakout Session: Empowering Girls Through Education

Urvashi Sahni, Founder, President and CEO of Studyhall Educational Foundation in Lucknow, India, spoke about her efforts to make students “agents” of the educational agenda, and spoke about how her school is putting gender equality into educational programming. She expressed the need to look at learning differently, “because when you start looking at things differently, people start treating you differently, and that’s how the world changes.”

Key issues related to education, malnutrition, early childhood healthcare and the effects of stunted growth, a primary manifestation of malnutrition in early childhood. A reported 19,000 child

Venue : Empire West, Second Floor, Sheraton New York Hotel
Date of Discussion: Monday, 24th September 2012

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