Girls’ Education: A World Bank Priority
The World Bank is committed to fighting poverty and helping developing countries invest in their education systems. In light of this, it has embraced the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals as its main priority and, particularly, “eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education.” The World Bank has recognized that there is no investment more effective for achieving development goals than educating girls.

The World Bank is a partner and one of many players in the international drive to improve gender equality and empower girls and women. World Bank activities focus on assisting countries’ own efforts to advance gender equality. Through its lending and non-lending activities, the Bank has helped to improve lives of girls in client countries. Since the World Conference of Education in Jomtien in 1990, the Bank’s emphasis in the area of girls’ education has increased and gender equality has been integrated as an important component of the Bank’s poverty reduction mission. The Education for All – Fast Track Initiative and the recent Education Sector Strategy Update have reinforced the World Bank’s commitment to the Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals. 

How are girls doing?: Success and Challenges

Girls’ enrollments tend to go upwards.  Thirty years ago, girls represented 38 percent of primary enrollments in low-income countries and boys, 62 percent.  Today, the gender gap has narrowed with girls representing 48 percent and boys 52 percent of primary enrollments (OECD/UNESCO, 2005).  Gross enrollment rates for girls in some low-income countries have gone from 52 percent to 94 percent over that same period. These averages, however, hide sharp differences among regions and countries.

Between 1999 and 2005, the worldwide number of children not in school declined rapidly from about 100 million to 72 million.  However, girls still constitute 57% of all out-of-school children, down from 59% in 1999.  Worldwide, for every 100 boys out-of-school there are 132 girls.  In some countries the gender gap is much wider. For example, for every 100 boys out of school in Yemen there are 270 girls, in Iraq 316 girls, in India 426 girls, and in Benin 257 girls (UNESCO GMR, 2007).  Gender differential access to school is usually caused by poverty, adverse cultural practices, schooling quality and distance to schools. However, there are some emerging challenges that reduce girls’ enrollment in primary, secondary and tertiary education. These are: HIV/AIDS, orphanhood, conflicts, emergencies and other fragile situations, gender-based violence, and information technology gender gap.

Gender disparities still remain in both primary enrollment and school completion rates. However, many low-income countries have registered improvements in primary school completion rates, with an average increase of 6 percent (from 65 percent in 1990 to 71 percent in 2003) (World Bank, EdStats, 2005). The completion rate for girls rose by 9 percentage points, from 57 percent in 1990 to 66 percent in 2004, whereas the primary school completion rates for boys increased only from 75 percent to 76 percent during the same period (World Bank, EdStats, 2005).

The MDG goal of gender parity in primary and secondary education by 2005 was not met in most regions; however, there is substantial cause for optimism.  Most of the developing countries are on course for closing gender gap in primary enrollment by 2015 if they continue at present rates of progress in enrollment and attendance rates. In order to achieve gender equality by 2015, more attention will need to be focused on access to include provision at the secondary and tertiary education levels, retention, quality, learning outcomes and relevance of education at all levels . Strategic directions for accelerating gender equality in education also include emphasize on monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of interventions as well as their impact.

 

Why is girls' education important?

There are several compelling benefits associated with girls’ education, which include the reduction of child and maternal mortality, improvement of child nutrition and health, lower fertility rates, enhancement of women’s domestic role and their political participation, improvement of the economic productivity and growth, and protection of girls from HIV/AIDS, abuse and exploitation. Girls’ education yields some of the highest returns of all development investments, yielding both private and social benefits that accrue to individuals, families, and society at large by

• Reducing women’s fertility rates. Women with formal education are much more likely to use reliable family planning methods, delay marriage and childbearing, and have fewer and healthier babies than women with no formal education. It is estimated that one year of female schooling reduces fertility by 10 percent. The effect is particularly pronounced for secondary schooling.
   
• Lowering infant and child mortality rates. Women with some formal education are more likely to seek medical care, ensure their children are immunized, be better informed about their children's nutritional requirements, and adopt improved sanitation practices. As a result, their infants and children have higher survival rates and tend to be healthier and better nourished.
   
• Lowering maternal mortality rates. Women with formal education tend to have better knowledge about health care practices, are less likely to become pregnant at a very young age, tend to have fewer, better-spaced pregnancies, and seek pre- and post-natal care. It is estimated that an additional year of schooling for 1,000 women helps prevent two maternal deaths.
   
• Protecting against HIV/AIDS infection. Girls’ education ranks among the most powerful tools for reducing girls’ vulnerability. It slows and reduces the spread of HIV/AIDS by contributing to female economic independence, delayed marriage, family planning, and work outside the home, as well as conveying greater information about the disease and how to prevent it.
   
• Increasing women’s labor force participation rates and earnings. Education has been proven to increase income for wage earners and increase productivity for employers, yielding benefits for the community and society.
   
• Creating intergenerational education benefits. Mothers’ education is a significant variable affecting children’s education attainment and opportunities. A mother with a few years of formal education is considerably more likely to send her children to school. In many countries each additional year of formal education completed by a mother translates into her children remaining in school for an additional one-third to one-half year.

Girls’ education and the promotion of gender equality in education are vital to development, and policies and actions that do not address gender disparities miss critical development opportunities.

What is the World Bank doing to support girls' education?
The Bank complements its lending services with substantial non-financial assistance, largely in the form of analytical, advisory, knowledge-sharing, and capacity building activities but also including efforts to mobilize funding from donors or from the private sector to meet countries’ large financing needs for education.

Targeting countries with significant gender disparities in schooling:
The Bank has provided financial resources and technical assistance to the following countries that have significant gender disparities in educational enrollments at the primary and secondary levels:

• Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia
• East Asia and the Pacific: Cambodia, Vietnam, Lao PDR
• South Asia: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan
• Middle East and North Africa: Morocco, Yemen, Egypt, and Djibouti
• Europe and Central Asia: Moldova, Turkey, Tajikistan
• Latin American and the Caribbean: Guatemala, Bolivia, Brazil, El Salvador, Mexico

Between 1990 and 2007, the World Bank financed 425 education sector projects distributed across the Bank’s six regions and additional 538 projects that had education components. Eighty nine projects had components with interventions specifically aimed at improving girls’ education outcomes. Since 1998, there has been an increase in the percentage of projects that focus on girls’ primary education (77% of all projects on primary education, in comparison to 58% in 1990-1997).

Providing a depository of Knowledge on girls’ education issues:
The Bank has supported 

• research studies on factors that affect girls’ participation and learning;  
• development of capacity and training programs in Ministries of Education for the implementation of girls’ education strategies;
• organization of regional and country level workshops in collaboration with other partners to share country experiences and best practices on the improvement of girls’ education;
• dissemination of information and best practices in girls’ education through publications, electronic media, videos and presentations; and
• mainstreaming gender in country and sector policy dialogue with client countries.

Financing strategies that work:

Drawing from its analytic work, the Bank has financed strategies that have been found to work for the improvement of girls’ education through its operational work. Examples of strategies supported include those that:

• Are System-wide and cross-sectoral;
• Balance supply and demand side interventions (for ex., Pakistan - Balochistan Primary Education Program Project (BPEP) (1993-1999); Bangladesh - Female Secondary School Assistance project (2002 - 2007) etc.);
• Focus on educational quality improvements (for ex., Cambodia – Education Quality Improvement project (1999 - 2004); Pakistan - Balochistan Primary Education Program Project (BPEP) (1993-1999) etc.); 
• Enhance capacity building and institutional development (for ex., Guatemala - Basic Education Reform Project (1998-2003) etc.);
• Support community development (for ex., Guinea – Equity and School Improvement Project (1996-2002) etc.);
• Are based on a strong analytic framework (for ex., Yemen - Basic Education Project (1992-2000).

Who are we working with?
The World Bank works closely with other development organizations on Girls' Education issues. It has developed partnerships to help identify interventions that improve girls’ education outcomes and to provide resources necessary to support countries implementing such initiatives. The World Bank is an active member of the global partnership for girls’ education and the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI), which comprise of the following donors:  

• UNICEF, 
• UNESCO,  
• Department for International Development (DFID),  
• SIDA, 
• NORAD,  
• DANIDA, 
• Global Campaign for Education

and others.