Educating girls generates huge dividends for economic prosperity, health, peace and gender equality. Here’s how a fully funded GPE could help ensure that an additional 46 million girls enroll in school in partner countries and create inclusive education systems for a more equal, peaceful and sustainable future.
Educating girls generates huge dividends for economic prosperity, health, peace and gender equality. And achieving gender equality will help end poverty, build more resilient societies and achieve a sustainable future for all.
That’s why GPE puts gender at the heart of its support to partner countries.
And that strategy gets results.
Since 2002, GPE has helped partner countries enroll an additional 82 million girls in school, including 39 million who are enduring crises and conflict.
Nearly 3 of every 4 GPE partner countries have achieved gender parity in primary school completion rates.
Investments in educating girls have the highest returns for preventing future gender inequalities. It’s why G7 foreign and development ministers committed in early May to get 40 million more girls into school and 20 million more girls learning in low- and lower-middle-income countries by 2026. To achieve this, G7 countries committed to mobilize funding to support these goals, including through support to GPE.
Now GPE is sharpening its focus on secondary school so that every girl can get 12 years of a quality education.
GPE has a strong track record of helping partner governments break down stubborn barriers that keep girls from attending school and realizing their potential. Its tailored approach helps countries apply solutions that will drive change at scale, including by supporting accessible, safe schools in rural areas, hiring and promoting female teachers who can be role models, and engaging communities through mass awareness campaigns.
“Both male and female teachers are good, but before the female teacher is more like me, I feel more relaxed and free to ask more questions.”
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, GPE supported the implementation of a dedicated girls’ education strategy that engages communities in the fight to tackle harmful sociocultural norms and practices that keep girls out of school.
In Burundi, Madagascar, Mozambique and Senegal, GPE’s targeted COVID-19 support is helping prevent gender-based violence against girls during the pandemic.
In Pakistan’s Sindh province, GPE helped ensure that all school building upgrades include toilet and sanitation facilities that meet girls’ needs and help keep them safe.
All this work has a palpable effect on girls.
In Mauritania, GPE has been working with the government to build “proximity schools” in areas where high numbers of children, especially girls, were not transitioning to secondary school.
Thanks to the new school built close to her home on the outskirts of Mauritania’s capital, Nouakchott, Aichetou, 14, was able to enroll in grade 8, where she is flourishing.
“I always sit in the front row and I always participate. My teachers like me and I am one of the top students in my class.”
These kinds of solutions are making a difference. That’s why GPE has hardwired gender equality into everything it does and created a new $250 million funding window to help countries break down barriers to girls’ education.
A fully funded GPE could help ensure that an additional 46 million girls enroll in school in partner countries and create inclusive education systems fit for a more equal, peaceful and sustainable future.
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