A Case for the Girl-OPED Draft

THE GIRL CANNOT WAIT:The situation of many girls today coupled with current diverse global challenges calls for an urgent RESPONDSE to collectively invest in the girl child NOW. This Investment must be holistic, strategic and one that should trickle down to every girl.

Approximately 800,000 children in the Northern Region of Ghana are not in school. Girls are part of this huge and horrifying figure.

Day after day, cultural factors, traditional norms and harsh economic challenges, diseases and current unfavorable climate change continue to compel most girls in Ghana and in developing countries to drop out of school, engage in petty trading to support families and in some cases marry early burying alive their potentials. There are many other reasons why we should invest in the girl.

First of all the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which has been ratified by many nations since 1990 covers the girl up to 18 years. This convention legally calls us as families and Governments to invest in the girl child by protecting, promoting respecting the girls’ rights which is indispensable to development.

Again, it is an undisputable fact that girls are vital to the world today as they grow up to take the mantle and contribute effectively to development when invested in them consciously and passionately. Her Excellency Helen Sir Leaf Johnson, Hilary Clinton, Michelle Obama and many more are products of some investment that was made for them years ago. Today they are contributing to national and international development. They are heroines and mentors.

Thirdly, Investing in Girls today aid in solving many problems and help in all development sectors-economic, educational and social. Presently, we are faced with many challenges-Unfavourable Climate Change, economic recession, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Poverty, Maternal and Infant mortality etc. If we are to combat effectively the world’s ills today and tomorrow we need to effectively and strategically invest in girls.

Development researchers, scholars and expert working for and with girls - Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman, Melinda Gates, Managing Director of the World Bank- Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, all attest to the need and recognize the significance of investing in girls and supports the campaign. According to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala \"If you invest in girls, if you educate girls, if you get girls into jobs, you solve many problems, because educated girls have fewer children and they will be aware of measures to tackle climate change.”

Investing in girls today is a staregic and most effective way of empowering the girl (who will grow up to be a woman), equip her with skills and tools to face the future and be part of the solutions of today and tomorrow’s global challenges. Global Economy will improve, global warming will slow down, HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, maternal and infant mortality will also decelerate.

Economically, Investing in the girl today can help tomorrow’s woman to gain economic independence. According to Girls Count, “at the macro economic level, the size and competiveness of tomorrow’s labour force will be shaped by today’s girls’ education and skills-building and by how much these girls use their education and skills in formal and informal economic activity.

What is more? Calculations by David Wheeler, a former worker with the World Bank who is now at the Center for Global Development has it that “ investing in methods to slow population growth (educating girls and family planning) in developing countries could lead to greenhouse gas savings on the order of switching all coal-fired power plants to wind power--at a far lower cost.”

Health wise, HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other health related Diseases will slow as educated mothers take better care of their children.

There are many practical ways can we all invest in girls today?
The four pillars of the UNCRC –Survival, Development, Participation, and Protection encompassed in Articles 2, 6, 19 and 28 require commitments from us as individuals, families, communities, orgnaisations and Governments in investing in the girl.

All around us there are girls-struggling to find a place and space in this world, fighting to gain feet, thirsty for encouragement, hungry for care, love and support for their education. Investing a portion of our time, talent and treasure in a girl today is an urgent call. We all can invest in the girl by

-Promoting, protecting and respecting the rights of girls
-Promoting girls’ education and sustaining girls in school
-Supporting projects and programmes targeted at the girls’ empowerment by giving our time, talent or treasure
-Supporting Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health programmes
-Mentoring girls as adults, leaders who have made it.
-Teaching, mentoring, encouraging, and supporting girls morally

\"If investing in women is smart economics, then investing in girls ... is even smarter economics” says Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.