CELEBRATE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY:
URGE CONGRESS TO PASS THE GROWTH ACT,
FIGHT GLOBAL POVERTY BY EMPOWERING WOMEN
"Investing in women means investing in families, communities, and nations."
--Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director, UNFPA, Statement on the Occasion of International Women's Day
Did you know that, of the one billion people living in extreme poverty around the world, 70 percent are women? Or that women do about 66 percent of the world's work and yet receive less than five percent of its income? Or that women produce half the world's food but own just one percent of its farmland?
The bipartisan Global Resources and Opportunities for Women to Thrive (GROWTH) Act (H.R.2965, S.2069) is currently pending in both chambers of Congress. It would reshape U.S. foreign aid and trade policy in four ways that empower women. It would:
- Provide funds to help women start and grow their own business;
- Provide training and education to women to improve their wages and working conditions;
- Ensure that U.S. trade policy is beneficial to women and families living in poverty; and
- Enhance women's land and property rights by prompting U.S. development agencies to work with women and organizations in the developing world addressing these disparities.
Solutions like property rights and investing in women's businesses are simple, but ultimately life-changing. As Shade Bembatoum-Young, a Nigerian woman who supports the GROWTH Act says: "One line on a property deed can be the difference between poverty and hope for a woman and her family."
Click here for the full text of Bembatoum-Young's statement and additional resources on the GROWTH Act.
Investing in women is the surest way to end global poverty and meet the Millennium Development Goals. The GROWTH puts U.S. foreign policy on the right track toward exactly the kind of change that's needed to achieve the MDGs.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Click here to send a message to your Senators and Representative urging congressional passage of the GROWTH Act in 2008. If your lawmakers have not signed on as cosponsors, urge them to do so.
