♯the girl effect
Warwick Welcomes
Secretary of State for International Development
Discrimination against girls and women
has
remained
prevalent,
despite
significant gains made over the years. The
effect of war, poverty and discrimination
against girls and women is a subject that
has preoccupied academics, practitioners,
and governments for decades, but often
with very slow progress towards
addressing this complex and deeplyrooted problem. The complexities of
negotiating cultural norms, societal
expectations and entrenched poverty
have often stymied proposed solutions to
this long identified problem. In light of
these realities, what better theme for the
University
of
Warwick
inaugural
International
Development
Annual
Lecture than this extremely important
issue?
On Thursday 1st May, Warwick University’s Global
Research
Priority
programme
on
International
Development (GRP ID) welcomed the Secretary of State for
International Development, the Rt. Hon. Justine Greening
MP to speak on ‘The Girl Effect: why tackling gender
inequality can transform the developing world’. The
lecture provoked enthusiasm and generated an
atmosphere of positive engagement and open dialogue
among the attendees, who included staff, students and
community groups with an interest in international
development.
Shirin Rai, Professor in the Department of Politics
and International Studies and co-Director of the
GRP ID, welcomed the Secretary of State to Warwick
and reminded the audience that despite many gains
over the last decades, the challenges faced by girls and
women globally remain considerable. With 250
million adolescent girls living in poverty, wars and
political conflicts continuing to put women in harm’s
way, and the daily experiences of harassment, sexism,
violence and discrimination, the struggles faced by
women make for distressing reading. However, this
dismal story has also been a call to action at the individual, governmental and
non-governmental levels. Prof Rai outlined the different approaches that have
been employed to tackle these inequalities by empowering girls and women.
These approaches include SMART
economics which focuses on the
economic agency of women in the
uplifting of families and then entire
communities; causing poverty reduction
in the economy as a whole. On the other
hand, a rights based approach to gender
equality which focuses on citizen claims
against the state –entitlements to
education and health, to fair laws – and
the state’s international responsibility to
deliver these. Lastly, Prof Rai discussed transformatory approaches that focus on
altering the gender biases in policy making, public discourse, and in challenging
the private/public divide.
This introduction helped to focus the audience’s attention on the complexities
being faced by the government’s Department for International Development
whose job it is to engage with these diverse challenges.
Ms Greening began her lecture by elaborating on why she chose to speak at the
University of Warwick – Warwick represents an institution which is all about
enlightening and improving the world around us, through the people that come
to learn and work here. The shared goal was - seeking to build a better
future.
Justine Greening delivered an engaging and passionate speech with a call for
building a better future for all – in which where you come from or who you are is
immaterial, but what you do and how you conduct yourself becomes the key to
action. She reminded the audience that the UK Department for International
Development is helping girls and women across the developing world to find and
project their voices. In order for girls and women to live up to their potential,
two key issues are being tackled– these are early forced marriages and female
genital mutilation (FGM).
Putting these issues on the global agenda has been key to ensuring that they are
tackled with adequate dynamism and influence, she said. However, the approach
must be a holistic one which also tackles the inferior position of women in
communities where they suffer from multiple disadvantages. Greening
emphasised that the push for change will necessarily entail challenging deeply
entrenched ideas about the role, position and rights of women in many
developing countries.
‘One of the best investments in the developing world, is investing in women
and girls’
Education for girls works, Greening said: half of the total reduction in the deaths
of children under the age of 5 in the last 4 decades could be tied to
improvements in the basic education for girls. Thus, freedom and emancipation
requires the opening of minds. This is equally true for us in first world countries
like England, at places like the University of Warwick.
After the lecture, there was a short Q&A session hosted by the Provost of the
University, Professor Stuart Croft and then the Secretary of State mingled with
members of the audience in the ‘International Development Marketplace’, where
community and university International Development groups held stalls
reflecting their research and advocacy work.