Empowering Women Is Key To Planned Population Growth in Africa, Educated Citizens, Good Health and Economic Development

Empowering Women Is Key To Planned Population Growth in Africa, Educated Citizens, Good Health and Economic Development

By Alex Ezeh, Dornsife Professor of Global Health, Drexel University

I think about the future of my continent in terms of three questions: Are Africans healthy? Do they have access to a good education? And do they have opportunities to apply their skills?

Millions more Africans have been able to answer yes to these questions in recent years. But there’s an elephant in the room. One of the keys to keeping this progress going is slowing down the rapid rates of population growth in parts of the continent. But population issues are so difficult to talk about that the development community has been ignoring them for years.

Population growth is a controversial topic because, in the not-too-distant past, some countries tried to control population growth with abusive, coercive policies, including forced sterilization. Now, human rights are again at the centre of the discussion about family planning, where they belong. But as part of repairing the wounds created by this history, population was removed from the development vocabulary altogether.

For the sake of Africa’s future, we should bring it back. Based on current trends, Africa as a whole is projected to double in size by 2050. Between 2050 and 2100, according to the United Nations, it could almost double again. In that case, the continent would have to quadruple its efforts just to maintain the current level of investment in health and education, which is too low already.

But if the rate of population growth slows down there will be more resources to invest in each African’s health, education, and opportunity – in other words, in a good life.

Girls' Underage Marriages Decline By More Than A Third In A Decade, With India Center Stage

Girls' Underage Marriages Decline By More Than A Third In A Decade, With India Center Stage

UNICEF announced in a new report that the number of underage girls married each year is now estimated at 12 million. Even though the number remains too high, the total a decade ago was a depressing and embarrassing 37 million girls. 

“Each and every child marriage prevented gives another girl the chance to fulfill her potential,” Anju Malhotra, UNICEF’s Principal Gender Advisor, says in a press release. “But given the world has pledged to end child marriage by 2030, we’re going to have to collectively redouble efforts to prevent millions of girls from having their childhoods stolen through this devastating practice.”

The data is widespread with major drops of more than a third in India and Ethiopia. The New York Times reports that in Bihar, a poor, agrarian state in northern India, a 2005 survey reported that 60 percent of surveyed women reported being underage when married. A decade later, 42.5 percent report being married under age 18.

Bill and Melinda Gates Make A Big Move For Women's Global Economic Empowerment

Bill and Melinda Gates Make A Big Move For Women's Global Economic Empowerment

For over a decade, researchers have known that everything changes in almost every community and country worldwide when women have money. 

On Monday Melinda Gates published an op-ed in Quartz in which she and husband Bill Gates announced a four-year pledge of $170 million to help empower women economically worldwide.

The decision comes at a time when 1) the Gates Foundation has tried to block the damage levied at poor women worldwide by cuts In the US budget that funds global women's health initiatives -- not abortions, but 'yes' to birth control being available at women's health clinics. Generally-speaking, the Trump administration stands opposed to taxpayer-funded birth control, arguing that it diminishes religious freedoms for those Americans opposed to contraception; and 2) in response to #MeToo stories and the prevalence of sexual harassment and violence against women worldwide.

The money, from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will be spent over four years “to help women exercise their economic power,” Melinda Gates wrote. She noted that research shows economic power is the “most promising entry points for gender equality.” 

“Simply put when money flows into the hands of women who have the authority to use it, everything changes,” Melinda Gates wrote.