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Update MeetingSymposium to report positive returns from programs in Africa for girls’ welfare
Courtersy of newscenter.berkeley.edu
By Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations
Berkeley— Positive outcomes and lessons to be learned from new approaches to help girls and women struggling in developing countries will be explored in an April 28 symposium to be hosted by the Center for Evaluation of Global Action (CEGA), based at the University of California, Berkeley.
“Evidence to Action: The Returns to Investment in Girls” is geared toward researchers, policymakers, non-government organizations and donors who want to know how best to deploy resources for social development programs and policies generally, and to boost girls’ education, empowerment and progress into adulthood around the world.
The symposium will be held from 1-5 p.m. on Thursday, April 28, in the Banatao Auditorium at UC Berkeley’s Sutardja Dai Hall. All of the research to be examined at the program is based in Africa.
Edward Miguel, CEGA’s director and a UC Berkeley professor of economics with field work experience in Kenya, Tanzania, Sierra Leone and India, said the research being presented at the symposium is united by researchers’ desire to establish whether and how empowering women through education or economic opportunities affects their lives and the quality of others’ lives within their societies.
One study in Kenya shows that girls enrolled in an education scholarship program tend to delay marriage and chose their own spouses rather than have him chosen by their parents. Photo by Lisa Chen.
“The body of results shed light on what is arguably the world’s most important development challenge – promoting greater equity for half of humanity – given how systematically the most basic rights and opportunities are denied to women in many countries,” Miguel said.
In a major speech earlier this month, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that one of the most significant aspects of recent revolutions in Africa and the Middle East is that women are participating. Yet, he noted, empowering women is still a challenge in many places around the world, and many nations lack reliable data on the economic impacts of women or on their roles in health and education.
CEGA, the campus’s premier center for development research and impact analysis, has partners in more than 30 low- and middle-income countries who are working with its researchers to test a host of anti-poverty programs and strategies.
The center’s second annual symposium will include reports on:
Girls in a sewing class use paper bags rather than cloth, due to cost constraints. Photo by Lisa Chen.
The program is free and open to the public, but registration is advised. To register for the symposium, or for directions, go to CEGA symposium.
CEGA researchers work on large-scale evaluation projects ranging from agriculture and water to nutrition and education, from district to national scales. A list and details of their projects is online.