Health

Helping to eradicate disease and improve basic health care is often the first step in breaking the cycle of poverty, not only by saving millions of lives but by preserving the livelihoods and social fabric of entire communities.

Within their families and beyond, women are the linchpins.

• Educating girls and women—the majority of farmers in the developing world—leads to more productive farming and accounted for almost half the decline in malnutrition between 1970 and 1995.
  Source: Center for Global Development, Rich World, Poor World — A Guide to Global Development Education and the Developing World
• In some Mozambique villages, women must spend more than two hours each day to collect water from the nearest rivers and springs.
  Source: International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) — Rural Women's Walking Time
• Educated mothers are 50 percent more likely to immunize their children than are mothers with no education.
  Source: Center for Global Development, Rich World, Poor World — A Guide to Global Development Education and the Developing World
• One of the most effective ways to reduce risks to mothers and newborns is to ensure that more girls enroll and stay in school. The more time girls spend in school, the later they marry and begin childbearing. Educated girls also are more likely to grow up to be mothers who are healthy, well-nourished, economically empowered and resourceful when it comes to caring for themselves and their babies. Sadly, 58 million girls in the developing world are not attending school.
  Source: Save the Children: State of the World's Mothers 2006 Report