Camfed's programs highlighted in Financial Times' story about the long-term benefits of girls' education

(PRLEAP.COM) October 2, 2008 - In the Saturday, September 27 edition of the Financial Times, award-winning journalist/op-ed editor Caroline Daniel examines the impact that girls’ education is having on poverty in sub-Saharan Africa through the lens of Camfed’s programs.

To report the piece, Daniel traveled to rural Zambia, where the unemployment rate is 70 percent, and looked at how educated young women are using their earnings to provide for their families and to educate the next generation of children. The result, an article called "The New Class Struggle", is an in-depth feature which weaves policy-level debate on girls’ education and economic empowerment with real-life stories of girls and young women who have been supported by the Campaign for Female Education (Camfed), a non-profit organization that educates girls and invests in economic and leadership opportunities for them once they graduate.

Experts quoted in "The New Class Struggle":

Lawrence Summers, former Chief Economist of the World Bank: "The benefits of education have a multiplier effect because they empower women to bring about other necessary changes. Targeting girls’ education is appealing as it can be seen as hard-headed and soft-hearted. It is hard to find development actions that are both."

Geeta Rao Gupta, President of the International Center for Research on Women: "From studies in the 1980s, we know that women typically spend their income on food and healthcare for their children. This is in sharp contrast to men, who spend a higher proportion of their own incomes for personal expenditure."

Statistics from "The New Class Struggle":
• For every two or three years of education, a woman is likely to have one less child.
• An extra year of female education can reduce infant mortality by five-ten percent.
• In Africa, children of mothers who receive five years of primary education are 40 percent less likely to die before age five than those of uneducated mothers.

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