A girl who receives a minimum of primary education is more likely to grow and take care of herself from a health perspective. She is more likely to be economically secure. She is more likely to make choices about her future, and therefore choices on when to have children, therefore children tend to be spaced more appropriately. Therefore the children tend to be healthy. So there are many factors that education plays.
Funding remains the biggest obstacle to improving access to education.
Patricia Sears of the Center for Development and Population Activities says donor countries, particularly the United States, have not lived up to their aid commitments. She says the problem has to do with a more conservative approach to foreign aid and the fact that population aid has gotten tied up with the controversial issue of abortion. The U.S. has been prohibited since 1973 from funding any abortion policies or programs. So that is a non-issue. Sears says it's in the interest of prosperous donor countries to support gender equality and family planning.