From: Jim Rosenfield <jnr@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Date: 05 Oct 92 21:35 PDT
Subject: 9/22 News Stories on Hunger
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1471700135:000:3259
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!jnr    Oct  5 21:35:00 1992


/* Written 11:19 pm  Sep 22, 1992 by jnr in cdp:hunger.general */
/* ---------- "9/22 News Stories on Hunger" ---------- */
 
APn  09/22 0005  Education Women: Great Cost-benefit

Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By DAVID BRISCOE

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The World Bank's chief economist says the most
profitable investment for Third World countries would be to educate
their schoolgirls.

Lawrence H. Summers, also a vice president of the world's biggest
lender, on Monday laid out an unusual cost-benefit analysis for poor
countries whose women now work harder, earn less and die sooner then
men.

Educating girls can return better profits than any other investment in
developing nations, Summers said.

In addition to the financial benefits, improving girls' education can
reduce child mortality and fertility rates, cut the number of infant
deaths, help prevent the spread of AIDS and improve the environment,
the bank official said.

The ultimate benefit, he said, could be to transform societies.

"I would dare to suggest that over time the importance of female
education will dwarf that of many of the financial issues on which we
will focus over the next few days," Summers said at the start of
annual World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings.

Women constitute only a small minority of official delegates from 170
member nations.

Summers said women are more likely to be impoverished than men and in
some countries girls are fed less than their brothers and their
illnesses are less likely to be treated.

"And it can come as no surprise that female literacy falls far short
of male literacy," he said.

Summers said educating 1,000 girls would cost $32,000 in India and
could prevent 43 infant deaths, avert two maternal deaths and stop 300
future births.

He estimated the cost of saving that many lives and preventing that
many births with other programs at $52,000 -- a net gain of $20,000 in
purely financial terms without even taking into account increased
productivity of the women.

"No one can objectively value a life saved or put a price tag on
empowering women," Summers said, "but I think a crude calculation is
instructive."

Summers' calculations put the overall cost of educating as many girls
as boys in the developing world at $3.2 billion -- less than 1 percent
of the total investment in new capital goods by governments in the
developing world.

He suggested this amount could be raised by forgoing construction of
one out of 30 power plants planned over the next 10 years.

Summers announced that the bank, the largest single source of outside
education funding for the Third World, is committed to expanding
female education in the vast majority of its loans, beginning in the
fiscal year that starts in June.

In the 1970s, only 5 percent of World Bank education loans made any
reference to gender, but in the 1980s the number increased to 21
percent, said bank officer Elizabeth King. In recent years, it has
approached two-thirds, and by next year three-fourths of the loans
will deal specifically with the education of young women, other
officials said. 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Used with permission of Associated Press.

Newsgroups: soc.culture.african