DFID is working to give girls and women choice, voice and control over their lives. Across the developing world, women and girls bear a disproportionate burden of poverty - but we know when we invest in girls, they have the potential to transform their prospects, their communities and the world. In these blogs various voices will show why this is important and how the UK is helping.
There are apparently three stages to adapting to a new country; firstly, elation – everything is new, exciting and different; secondly frustration – everything is new, confusing and different; and lastly, normalisation – everything has its ups and downs, some …
Three years ago, recognising widespread human rights discrimination and violence against girls, the United Nations (UN) made a promise to observe the International Day of the Girl Child on 11 October, and the theme this year is the power of …
The last week of September was a momentous week for many working in development – the end of the Millennium Development Goals and the launch of a new set of Global Goals that will shape policy, programming and reporting for the foreseeable …
An astonishing transformation is taking place that has until now been absent from mainstream development thinking: global ageing. Its absence is even more surprising as the evidence makes clear that demographic changes are affecting developing countries the most. Currently about …
Last Saturday, I joined the Tanzanian Youth Summit, one of several such events happening across the world, that will culminate in London in a few days (check out the #YouthSummit site). It was a room full of young Tanzanians who …
On Saturday I was invited to speak to 40 girls from Samburu, a remote part of Kenya which forms one of the arid and semi- arid lands of the country. So I jumped at the chance. Kenyan girls are always …
Romana was a young girl when her family told her she was getting married. This is not unusual in Bangladesh; according to UNICEF, nearly two-thirds of girls are married before the age of 18 and more than a quarter of …
Working on a taboo subject can be isolating and demoralising and, as evidenced by the experience of some Girls Not Brides members focused on ending child marriage within their communities, even life-threatening. Until a few years ago, child marriage was such …
This is the second of Baroness Northover’s blogs from Tanzania, where the theme of her visit is ‘leave no one behind’. In her previous blog she focused on disability, and today on women and girls. We have come up to …
The practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Sierra Leone is shrouded in great secrecy and mysticism. It usually takes the form of removal of the clitoris, sometimes using razor blades, penknives and even broken glass. It is at the …
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