Girls in Rural Economies

Ubicación

Platform Purpose

Welcome to the Girls in Rural Economies web platform! The site is intended as an information clearinghouse - a space where colleagues working to address rural development and the role of adolescent girls within rural economic transformation can share information and resources and participate in on-line discussions. To facilitate this online community, we ask colleagues to do the following:

• Join the online community platform.
• After joining the group, review the brief description of the project listed below.
• Then, please visit the “Discussions” section to review a small set of questions by Catherine Bertini, to which your responses are welcome.
• Also, feel free to upload content, including publications, articles, references, and links to resources.
• Check-in on the site regularly to review newly posted items and participate in additional discussions.

About the Project

The Girls in Rural Economies project is spearheaded by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs with generous support from the Nike, Bill & Melinda Gates, and United Nations Foundations. The initiative is chaired by Catherine Bertini, former executive director of the UN World Food Programme (1992-2002). The project examines the nature of adolescent girls' participation in the rural economic sectors of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and seeks to identify opportunities to better equip girls and young women to be agents of social and economic change.

The Chicago Council convened a technical experts committee in November 2010, followed by a meeting of the project's international advisory group – experts in the fields of gender, development, agriculture, entrepreneurship, informal employment, and health – that was convened in December 2010 in Rome.

The chief written output of the project will be a report that assesses the role of adolescent girls in rural economic sectors of the developing world and identifies opportunities for national governments and bilateral donors to better support rural girls and young women’s personal and professional development, health and safety, and in turn, spur long-term economic growth and social stability at the community, national, and regional levels. The report will be published in mid-2011 and disseminated to governments and regional organizations in the aforementioned regions, bilateral donors, international organizations, NGOs, relevant policy makers and international media and opinion leaders.

The report will serve as the next volume of the Girls Count series. Girls Count provides some of the first critical research specifically focused on adolescent girls in the developing world. It demonstrates how providing support to girls ages 10-18 dramatically improves their lives – and also results in significant benefits for society as a whole.