Impacts of Women's Poverty
A large body of studies has shown that gender inequalities have significant negative impact on economic growth in Africa. The goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015 in the Millennium Development Goals cannot be achieved without a concerted effort to improve women's access to economic opportunities and the returns to their effort.
Social indicators such as high fertility, low birth weight infants, child mortality and high maternal mortality cannot be improved without reducing women's workload, their access to education and their access to and
control of income.
Increasing women's access to assets and income while
reducing their workload has been shown to result in increased spending on food, and children's education including increased spending on girls' education. Studies also show that increasing women's income results in a higher rate of savings. Thus a gender-aware and pro-poor poverty reduction strategy is likely to result in higher growth rates and human development. (Read More)
