Plan Canada

As one of the world’s leading development organization, we know firsthand that gender discrimination is linked with child poverty and has social and economic costs for everyone.

Investing in girls is the right thing to do and the smart thing to do. It delivers a higher return than any other investment made in a country’s development.

Our decades of experience and in-depth research in to the state of the world’s girls, has shown overwhelmingly that girls are the key to reducing poverty for children, families, communities and nations.

We undertake a wide range of programs to improve the status of girls and give them equal access to healthcare, education, protection, independence, and an opportunity to participate in society

Programs include scholarships, girls latrines and dormitories, reproductive and maternal health programs, life skills, vocational training, financial literacy programs, microfinance, and more.

Plan works with communities in the developing world to improve living conditions for all children, but we understand that girls face unique barriers and challenges, so we address gender discrimination in all of our program work. We work to ensure that as many girls as boys get access to education, healthcare, and the skills and opportunities needed to become independent adults who can break the cycle of poverty for themselves.

We know that if we invest in girls equally, and give them a chance to become empowered women, mother, workers, and leaders, they will break the cycle of poverty for their children and families, and all boys and girls will benefit.

Girls in developing countries face significant discrimination:

• They are three times more likely to be malnourished, because families feed them last.
  
• They are less likely to go to school: 62 million girls are out of primary school
  
• They are more likely to get HIV: two thirds of youth newly infected with HIV are female
  
• The leading cause of death of teenage girls is complications from pregnancy
  
• Seventy thousand teenage girls are married each day
  
• Millions of girls are exploited, abused, trafficked or sold into the sex trade.
  
• Girls are much more likely than boys to grow up and be poor. Of the 1.5 billion people living on less than a dollar a day, 70% are female

If we start to invest in girls as soon as they are born, they will grow up to make sure their own children are well fed, go to school and have the skills to earn a decent living.

For each year that a girl stays in school, her income will rise by 10-20 per cent. With the opportunity to earn a living, she will pull herself out of poverty and bring her children along with her. She will invest what she earns in them, and in their health, education and futures.

An educated girl will be more likely to marry later and have fewer, healthier children. She also has a greater chance of remaining healthy and alive, and, if she does, her children will be 3-10 times more likely to survive.