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Gender equality is key to achieving the MDGs: women and girls are central to development.

Article Excerpt
One of nine children growing up from a small town in an African country, Meaza was told: "Oh, you're so smart and have so much potential, it's too bad you're not a boy." But her mother, who was illiterate, believed her children deserved better. "When I think of my mother, I think about how women are prevented from reaching their potential", she says. "If you're illiterate and send five kids to college, you must have a lot of unused potential." Today, Meaza is a lawyer and a leader in legal advocacy to promote women's rights.

Solutions to gender disparities depend on finding ways to enable women and girls, as well as men and boys, to realize their full potential. While the examples we can point to, in which innovative solutions have been scaled up to become mainstream practice, are few, they are increasing and require greater visibility and investment at all levels.

Midway to the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), finding such solutions is imperative. The 2000 Millennium Declaration recognizes that gender equality is not only a goal in itself but also central to achieving all of the MDGs. Improving gender equality, according to the World Bank, promotes universal primary education, reduces child mortality, improves maternal health and reduces vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. It also influences poverty reduction directly through women's greater labour force participation, productivity and earnings, and indirectly through the impact of women's improved household decision-making on family well-being. In contrast, the disadvantage women face in terms of rights, resources and voice is reflected in their poor performance across many...

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