Academy for Educational Development

Building a More Secure Future For Women Throughout The World

Research shows that investing in women has significant benefits to developing countries. The health, economic status, and general well-being of populations increase as men and women become more equal in societies. 

Still, in many countries women are less likely to have access to the same education and health care as men, and women make up the majority of people living on less than a dollar a day, which is the standard measure of extreme poverty. In addition to these inequalities, women and girls are targeted for human trafficking far more than men and boys.

The following is a sampling of AED projects that are working to find solutions to many of these problems.

Girls’ Education

Increasing the rates at which girls are educated in developing countries also has major benefits for health and economic indicators. In this story, May Rihani, director of the AED Center for Gender Equity, discusses AED’s work to increase girls’ education in Ghana.

Human Trafficking

Human trafficking, which disproportionately affects women and girls, has become a global business that generates huge profits for traffickers and organized criminal groups. AED maintains the Web site www.humantrafficking.org which works to link government agencies and non-governmental organizations that are fighting the war against human trafficking in the East Asia and Pacific region.

Women’s Empowerment

One of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals is to “promote gender equality and empower women,” and many international bilateral and multilateral donors now include women’s empowerment as an element in their health and development strategies.

AED’s Empowerment of Women Research Program does empirical studies to clarify the mechanisms through which policy and program interventions can foster empowerment of women to reduce gender inequality and mitigate its negative impacts on women’s health and well-being.

Women’s Health

Every three hours a woman in Mali dies due to complications from pregnancy or childbirth. The statistics are just as staggering in other developing countries. The “Reduce” advocacy model, developed by AED, focuses on decreasing maternal mortality, morbidity, and disability rates.

Women’s Leadership

Through the Kellogg Southern Africa Leadership fellowship program, which is coordinated by AED, African women are preparing for leadership roles in their home countries. Read more about their experiences in the program, and their plans for the future.

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence against women is a serious—and under-addressed—health and human rights problem directly linked to gender inequality. AED’s Empowerment of Women Research Program recently published a paper, Socioeconomic Factors and Processes Associated With Domestic Violence in Rural Bangladesh, which found that of about 1,200 women surveyed, 67% had experienced domestic violence, and 35% had been a victim in the past year.

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More information on International Women’s Day can be found on the U.N. Web site.