New world group aims to fight women’s poverty

from P2P net

United Nations statistics show women account for 70% of the world’s poor, own a mere 1%of the world’s titled land, and that two-thirds of the world’s illiterate people are women.

But a new group, with some of the world’s wealthiest, most privileged and most influential women as members, has been formed to change that.

And they’re using the Net to help get their message across.

Women, Faith, and Development Alliance, “has emerged with a global outlook and more than $1 billion in financial commitments,” says Voice of America.

It, “aims to boost the economic status of women and fight for the changes that will make such improvements possible”.

Involved are Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Queen Noor of Jordan, former Irish president Mary Robinson, and former Canadian prime minister Kim Campbell.

“Decades of research and analysis have shown that investments in women and girls are also the most effective solutions to poverty,” says WFDA.

“However, resources for women and girls in poverty remain disproportionately low compared to overall global allocations of aid.”

The group says rather than concentrating on specific areas such as education, health care, and microenterprise, it instead wants to focus media, public and political attention on making sure all programs, no matter the sector, include women and girls as well as push for more awareness of global poverty in general.

“WFDA advocacy priorities in the short term will include influencing the U.S. Presidential candidates as well as the the U.S. Government generally,” it says, going on:

“In addition, the WFDA will target important decisions being made at the United Nations and other global institutions that impact women and girls.”

The group staged an April 13-14 summit in Washington with actress and Global Youth AIDS ambassador Ashley Judd and three youth leaders from around the world, Birungi Alice Hope, Stellamaris Mualeh, and Andrew Francis, talking about the struggles girls in less developed countries face when they’re living in poverty.

“If we want a breakthrough, we have to change the choices for girls,” Judd is quoted as saying on the WDFA blog, going on education is the key to combating all aspects of the plight of women living in poverty.