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How Girls Can Break the Cycle of Poverty

"I want to tell you about my day. I wake up at 5 o'clock, I gather water from the well and I carry it home. I get my sisters ready and walk them miles to school, and then I walk to my school. My school ends at 1 o'clock. I pick my sisters up and take them home. Then I go to the market to buy food and cook. After, I help my mother sell vegetables and get water from the well. I help my sisters with their homework, and I do my homework. That is my day."
—Joyce Kollie

October 28, 2008—These are the words of 15-year-old Joyce Kollie from Liberia. She lives in a single room in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, with her parents and five sisters. It is hard for her to pursue her education while taking care of her siblings and household, but she never gives up because she hopes to one day have a good job to support herself and help her family. Joyce told her story to the hundreds of people assembled at the World Bank on October 10th for the launch the Adolescent Girls Initiative (AGI).

The AGI is a new project by the World Bank and its partners, including the Nike Foundation, aimed at providing young women the opportunity to study and earn an income to support themselves and their communities. This $20 million initiative identifies job opportunities and provides skills training matched to these jobs. The initiative also encourages young women to become entrepreneurs. The first project will start in Liberia in January 2009, with others expected to follow in Afghanistan, Nepal, Rwanda and (South) Sudan.

Studies also show that women are more likely than men to invest in their families and communities. For example:

In Brazil, the probability of a child surviving increases by about 20% when household income is in the hands of the mother.

In Kenya, income in mothers' hands led to a 17% increase in children's heights.

17-year-old Phennapha Phommachanh from Laos also participated in the launch. Phennapha works as a counselor at the Lao youth AIDS prevention program, where she educates the most disadvantaged women in her country about HIV/AIDS prevention. Her dream is to reach a high educational degree in social work so she can help poor women improve their lives. Her parents have given her brother most of the household's resources to go to school and there are not enough left for her, but she is resourceful and confident that she will eventually obtain a master's degree.

The courage and drive of the 600 million young women like Joyce and Phennapha living in the developing world, and their wish to help their families and communities, can be a strong force for development. And since many of these young women will become mothers, it can also be powerful for preventing future generations from living in poverty: if a mother is poor, she is more likely to transmit poverty to her children. If she is educated and has an income, then she is more likely to send her children to school and to the doctor to make sure they are healthy.

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