Interview: Featuring Yolonda Richardson
Why does basic education for girls matter to development and what progress, if any, is the international community making in this area? Educating girls is one of the smartest investments nations can make. Research shows that educated girls are more likely to delay marriage and childbearing. When they do have children, those children are more likely to survive and thrive. Educated mothers are much more likely to immunize their children and send them to school. And, women who are educated earn greater incomes for their families and nations. The world has definitely made progress in girls’ education—primary school enrollment rates for girls have increased 50 percent since 1960—but we still have a long way to go. Today, over 60 million girls of primary school-age are not in school. Many of these out-of-school girls are in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. How does one change the social norms and attitudes that may prevent girls from completing their education? One of the most important strategies is to make sure that education programs reflect local needs and priorities and that parents, community, and religious leaders are involved in the decision making process. For example, in many countries where CEDPA works, we’ve found that—while it was initially difficult to convince parents to permit their daughters to leave their homes and attend education programs—it became more acceptable when vocational skills’ training was introduced. We added programs for boys when we found that it increased parental support for our girls’ programs. Involving boys and young men—and including joint programming for both girls and boys—also improved male awareness of the challenges that girls and women faced. CEDPA has involved men and boys in many of our programs because they are key stakeholders in communities and decision-makers in families. There could be more success in this area, however, and we have to continue to move equality from a women’s problem to a community benefit. On your Web site, you note that “deeply entrenched barriers continue to exclude women from meaningful participation in the political arena.” What are these barriers and how are they to be overcome? There can be many barriers to a woman’s political participation throughout her lifetime. It begins in childhood. More than half of all children worldwide who are not in primary school are girls. Girls that do go to school may not see themselves as future leaders because of the lack of existing role models. Communities may not support young women’s leadership because of social norms that do not value women’s participation in the public sphere. All of these factors affect the lack of women candidates for national office.
Other lessons learned are that it takes investments in women’s education, advocacy, and leadership to train future leaders. Building community support for women's political participation is critical. Is there a country, or countries, that have made particular strides in empowering women and closing gender gaps? If so, what have they done differently? There is good news in some countries emerging from conflict, where there is a window of opportunity to ensure that women are involved in the process of creating new policy frameworks, governing structures, and new democratic cultures. When Rwanda emerged from the 1994 genocide, for example, it included women in rebuilding the nation and framing the new constitution, including setting aside a percentage of parliamentary seats for women. Today, women are in key leadership posts there. The minister of justice is a woman, as are several cabinet members. Women hold nearly 49 percent of the seats in the lower house of parliament in Rwanda—more than any parliamentary body in the world.
Where governments have set targets to achieve a critical mass of women in decision-making bodies, women tend to be represented in greater numbers. What do you think are the biggest challenges for women leaders today? From the 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference where thousands of women demanded that governments recognize women’s rights as human rights to the election of the new woman president of Liberia, women’s progress has been increasingly on the public stage. This has led to real results in policies and resource allocation. But, it has also led to a backlash. We have seen increased attempts to challenge women’s public roles and roll back women’s human rights overall. What initiatives have particularly inspired you and why? Looking at the past few decades, there are examples of success in every region of the world. Overall, women and girls are healthier, better educated, and more represented in leadership than they were 30 years ago. These successes keep me going in the face of the many daunting challenges ahead of us.
Yolonda C. Richardson President & CEO,CEDPA |
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