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Small Sips: To Improve Child Nutrition, Educate Girls

We know that child malnutrition is not just a food issue. Ending child malnutrition requires concerted action on many fronts.

One highly effective, long-term, and sustainable way to fight child malnutrition is through girls’ education.

Education is transformative.
Education can transform a girl’s life. A quality education gives girls more confidence, broader knowledge and life skills, and provides them with critical information about their health and rights. With an education, girls can make informed choices from a broader range of options. A quality education is the key to opening more doors for girls to contribute to their societies and achieve their full potential.

Education has the power to improve nutrition and save lives.
It is not just girls whose lives are transformed by education, it is their future children, their families, and their societies. Educating girls is one of the most effective ways there is to fight malnutrition and break intergenerational cycles of malnutrition. Studies around the world have linked maternal education with improved nutrition status of children.1  When educated girls grow up and become mothers, they tend to have fewer, healthier, and better-nourished children. Educated girls and women are better informed about sanitation, nutrition, health care, and immunization for their children, leading to fewer child deaths from malnutrition and preventable diseases such as diarrhea, pneumonia, and malaria. Educated women are also more likely to participate in the formal labour market and earn higher incomes, helping to put healthy food on the table and lift their families out of poverty.2

When girls stay in school longer:

  • Child marriage decreases
  • Child-bearing is delayed to a time that is healthier for women and their babies
  • Maternal mortality rates fall
  • Child mortality rates fall
  • Child stunting drops
  • Families are healthier
  • Their lifetime income dramatically increases
  • Their country’s GDP increases

Despite the many benefits of girls' education to the girls themselves and to their families and communities, far too many girls in the Global South are deprived of an education.

Girls’ exclusion from education is the result of many factors, including poverty, household chores, early marriage and pregnancy, discriminatory attitudes about the status and role of girls, and the lack of easy and safe access to schools near to where they live. Additionally, according to the World Bank, in regions affected by crisis and conflict, girls are more than twice as likely to be out of school as boys, and at the secondary level, are 90% more likely to be out of secondary school than those in non-crisis contexts.3  Most of the world’s out-of-school girls live in sub-Saharan Africa.4

Investing in girls' education accelerates development and transforms societies.
Girls’ education has a huge societal impact, breaking intergenerational cycles of malnutrition and poverty. Education empowers girls to build a better life for themselves and contribute to the health, safety, and prosperity of their families, communities, and nations. We cannot hope to achieve healthy, thriving societies without unlocking the potential of millions of girls currently denied an education. Increased investments are needed to promote gender equality in education and enable all girls go to school and stay in school. Ensuring that all girls and young women receive a quality education is their human right, one that pays tremendous dividends for the health and well-being of the world.

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[This is the sixth installment of GRAN Small Sips focused on child hunger.]

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