the facts

Facts do exist.

We rely on them to enlighten our worldviews, to check our opinions, to inform our decisions, to measure our impact. We seek reputable, evidence-based sources of information. We strive to measure impact objectively, leveraging hard data where available.

In our quest to contribute to the empowerment of girls and women globally, we have chosen to focus our efforts in the realms of education, healthcare and entrepreneurship. The facts on the global inequities in these areas for girls and women are compelling.

The Women's March on Washington January 2017

EDUCATION

The World Bank cites myriad reasons why girls’ education is a strategic development priority. Better educated women tend to be healthier, participate more in the formal labor market, earn higher incomes, have fewer children, marry at a later age, and enable better health care and education for their children, should they choose to become mothers. All these factors combined can help lift households, communities, and nations out of poverty. Massive inequities persist: the facts below are published by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

HEALTHCARE

According to the World Health Organization, while life expectancy is higher for women than men in most countries, a number of health and social factors create health disparities, lower quality of life and a more difficult outlook for women. Discrimination on the basis of sex leads to many health risks for women, including physical and sexual violence, sexually-transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS, malaria and respiratory disease.

MATERNAL HEALTH

Every two minutes, a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth - and the majority of these deaths are preventable.
(UNFPA)

NUTRITION

1 in 3 people are malnourished, yet every dollar spent on scaling-up nutrition interventions for pregnant women and children yields $16 in return.
(WHO GNP)

COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

Two-thirds of new adolescent HIV infections are among girls, and cervical cancer due to HPV infection is the second most common type of cancer in women.
(WHO Women's Health)

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Female leadership in business is correlated with a unique competitive advantage: research shows that companies with female leaders tend to outperform those where women are relatively absent; companies with women on their boards have improved returns on equity versus companies without women on their boards; hedge funds run by women tend to outperform other hedge funds. Yet still today, companies with female founders raise lower percents of overall funding, and the higher up the corporate ladder, the fewer the women.