World Population Day 11 July 2009 Economic benefits to nations are linked to health, education and workforce opportunities for women. Smart economics values gender equality Invest in female health Invest in female education Invest in female workforce opportunities

1. World Population Day
11 July 2009
Women are economic agents

3. “Responding to the Economic Crisis:
Investing in Women is a Smart Choice”

6. KEY CONCEPTS
1. Women and the economic crisis
2. Protect progress towards Millennium
Development Goals
3. Women are economic agents
4. Family planning is smart investment
5. Women migrant workers among most
vulnerable

8. Women are economic agents
Concept
Economic benefits to nations are linked to
health, education and workforce
opportunities for women.

10. Women are economic agents
Concept
Smart economics values gender equality
Women are economic agents who plow their
earnings into raising healthier and better-
educated children. Smart economics values
gender equality, because helping women earn
income keeps girls in school and food on the
family table. Action now to protect women in
developing countries could set the stage not only
for economic recovery, but also for economic
growth—a robust investment in troubled times.

12. Women are economic agents
Concept
Invest in health
Pregnancy and childbearing take a heavy toll on
women’s health and resources. Impoverished
women, and their children, are more vulnerable
to death or disability due to preventable illness
and injury, and to exploitation and abuse—
trapping generation after generation in poverty.

14. Women are economic agents
Concept
Invest in education
Educating girls and women leads to higher
levels of employment and family income,
lower fertility and mortality, and better
health and education – not only for women
and girls but for entire families.

16. Women are economic agents
Concept
Invest in workforce opportunities
Poverty is a lack of income and a lack of
opportunity. Microfinance credit programmes
prove that women’s repayment rates are much
higher than men’s. Progress in social and
economic development goes hand-in-hand with
gender equality.

18. Background I
Put money in women’s hands. In developing
countries, this pays off by easing hardship
immediately and by preventing a bad situation
from becoming worse. Studies conducted in both
developed and developing countries consistently
show that women allocate more resources to
their children’s health, nutrition and education
than men.

19. Background II
Policies and spending in response to the crisis
must help women, not hurt them. Ensure that job
creation and other measures are gender-
equitable. This protects entire families today; it
also contributes to the long run health of the
economy by raising productivity for tomorrow.
Investing in women promotes gender equality,
which allows women to realize their full potential
and contribute to economic and social
development.

20. Background III
Girls’ education yields some of the highest
returns of all development investments, the
World Bank reports, realized in higher wages
and better jobs, fewer and healthier children,
safer childbirth, better nutrition, safer sanitation
practices, more immunization and better health
for their children.In developing countries,
women’s health has critical economic
importance.

22. Background IV
Women are more than half the agricultural labour
force. They grow 80 per cent of staple crops in
Africa, and in South-east Asia, 90 per cent of
rice growers are women.The poorest countries
tend to be those where gender gaps, particularly
those related to education, are greatest.
Developing countries that take steps to diminish
gender inequality tend to see their poverty rates
decrease accordingly.

23. Background V
• In poor households, the loss of women’s income
takes a tremendous toll on children’s health and
well-being. In Bangladesh, Brazil, Kenya and
South Africa, among others, reliable evidence
shows that children’s welfare (nutritional status,
schooling attendance) in poor households
improves more when income is in women’s
hands.Policies and spending in response to past
economic crises have hurt women more than
men.

24. Background VI
Past stimulus packages have focused on
physical infrastructure projects, which
overwhelmingly favour men.Women
represent 60 per cent of the world’s poor.
Directing funds to women and girls helps
mitigate potential collapses in human
development, especially in health.

26. Thank You for Watching This Presentation
madhukar katiyar