Millennium Development Goals

Goal  #3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
     by  Laura Amendola

This summer in Columbus, OH, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church named the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the number one mission priority for the next three years.
To learn more about the MDGs and the Episcopal Church’s commitment, go to: www.episcopalchurch.org/ONE

This is the third installment in my eight-part series on the Millennium Development Goals. Goal number three is to promote gender equality and empower women. In particular, the target for this goal is to eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2015.

“Poverty has a women’s face” Women are often caught in a cycle of illiteracy, social restriction, sexual exploitation and childbirth. In the context of moderate and extreme poverty, this cycle often leads to exploding population rates and hopelessness. However, the more economic opportunity and education a woman has the less likely she is to fall into this cycle. In fact, the number one most effective thing we can do to prevent an overpopulation of humans on the earth is to economically empower women.

Here are the facts:

• Of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty around the world, 70% are women. (Source: World Revolution)

• Women do about 66% of the world's work in return for less than 5% of its income. (Source: Women's International Network)

• Two-thirds of children denied primary education are girls, and 75% of the world’s 876 million illiterate adults are women. (Source: AskWoman)

In addition to education, real tangible economic opportunities need to be available for women. One successful program called “micro-credit” recently was recognized with the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh and the Grameen Bank received the award for their work offering very-low income individuals small loans without requirements for collateral. Most of the loans are under $150 (US) and 96% of the recipients are women. It has been remarkably successful at generated economic development for some of the poorest of the poor and model that is being replicated all over the world.

“Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:17)

So what can you do?

• Give: if everyone gave just 0.7% of his or her gross income we could make gender equality a reality… Some suggestions for donations related to educations: Five Talents (www.fivetalents.org) which is working to provide micro-enterprise development, primarily for women. As well as Care International (www.care.org)

• Learn: Lots of information can be found online at: www.mdgender.net

• Click: www.millenniumcampaign.org a site with good info geared more towards Gen Xers but still good solid information. I’ve had this site in previous articles, but it’s really a good navigational and informative one.

Read about the other goals:

Goal #1:  Eradicating Extreme Hunger and Poverty
Goal #2:  Achieve Universal Primary Education
Goal #3:  Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
Goal #4:  Reduce Child Mortality
Goal #5:  Improve Maternal Health
Goal #6:  Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Goal #7:  Ensure Environmental Sustainability
 

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