Some progress in this regard has been made, but it must be accelerated, with the help of education and widespread attitudinal change encompassing policy makers and planners as well as the people at large. According to the Bah ' view, women are the first educators of humanity in their role as mothers, and thus girls should be given preference in receiving education. Since it is through educated mothers that the benefits of knowledge can most effectively and rapidly be diffused throughout society, this sense of educational priority for women should be founded not only in the family but in the national policy. The denial of female equality perpetrates an injustice against one-half of the population and promotes in men harmful attitudes and habits that are carried from the family to the work place and to society at large, thereby creating an obstacle to progressive and peaceful development. There are no grounds, moral, practical, or biological, upon which such denial can be justified.
Popular participation is essential to the success of social programmes.
It promotes the dignity of individuals and enables communities to benefit from the outflow of human creativity and spirit. Too often social programmes and policies have failed because they lacked genuine input and participation from the very people and communities they were designed to serve. Problems of corruption, crime and erosion of family-life in particular result from a poverty of ethical values. Human well-being requires material wealth, certainly, but even more so it requires moral and spiritual wealth. How to identify and incorporate in social policy those factors that best promote spiritual wealth is a challenge that policy makers must increasingly face.