DFID's Blogs on Empowering Girls: Strategies

"We know that when we empower girls, everybody benefits. Girls who are educated, healthy and free can transform their communities and pass on the benefits to their children, and to their children’s children." Graça Machel

The Department of International Development (DFID) United Kingdom (UK) Girl Summit 2014 has focused attention on both the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) and child early and forced marriage (CEFM), with the intent of uniting individuals, organisations, and governments to end the practices. This group of bloggers gathered by DFID presents a range of perspectives and approaches as detailed below:

• When we empower girls, everybody benefits - In this historical piece, blogger Graça Machel writes on the occasion of the inaugural International Day of the Girl and marks the fact that child marriage has been chosen as the official theme for the day. "At last, we are recognising that girl child who has been invisible for so long." She speaks of girls' empowerment as a common theme within the issues of universal education, ending violence against women, maternal and child health, economic development, and combating HIV/AIDS. "Ending child marriage means changing long-held traditions and challenging taboos. It is not something that can be imposed from outside in the name of progress or development, and experience has shown that simply passing laws banning the practice has little effect in communities where it remains the norm."
• If society doesn't treat women as equal - they won't be, Paul Healey, Head of Profession Social Development, DFID, writes about the World report on "Women’s Voice and Agency". "You might be wondering what is meant by 'voice and agency'. Simply put together they mean the extent to which i) women are able to make their views known and heard and can influence decision-making and ii) the power they have to take decisions concerning their own lives. A lack of voice often goes together with a lack of ability to make one’s own decisions." Healey illustrates the blog with a chart that shows three domains where women’s lack of agency overlaps: access to resources and education, child marriage, and protection from domestic violence, for example, and how "how these things change as women get access to their own income, better education, and other services." He states "...new legislation, community organisations, individual champions, the media and targeted programming can change the situation." He describes his "personal challenge in the next few months: ...to make sure that as DFID implements the UK International Gender Act - which means we think about gender equality before providing assistance - teams have the capability and knowledge to also take account women’s voice and agency when and where they can."
• Girls can drive development - Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, UN Undersecretary-General and Executive Director of UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) writes on the role of girls in bringing about sustainable development. His example is that of a girl saved from CEFM by participation in UNFPA’s Action for Adolescent Girls programme. "This collaborative initiative with the Niger Ministry of Population, Promotion of Women and Child Protection has an ambitious goal - to provide holistic, non-formal education to a quarter of a million girls aged 10-19 by 2018, reaching one-eighth of the nation’s adolescent girls. The effort is designed to boost the social and economic development of Niger, which has the world’s highest fertility rate and is ranked at the bottom of the UN’s 2014 Human Development Index." Underway in 8 countries, the programme attempts to reach girls and community members with services and information about their human rights and sexual and reproductive health. Dr. Osotimehin presented evidence that, in some of the countries where the programme is available, girls are marrying later. "When girls can take charge of their own destinies, they contribute more fully to their communities’ and their countries’ growth and development." Partnering with DFID and UNICEF, the UNFPA is reaching into 6 more countries to work on the issue of child marriage. In addition, "an advocacy campaign [is] calling on young people and supporters to make their voices heard by taking a selfie and sharing it on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #showyourselfie". (Their campaign-in-a-box resources are available here.)