Barbara Herz, Gene B. Sperling, Council on Foreign Relations Press, April 2004

Investing in girls’ education globally delivers huge returns for economic growth, political participation, women’s health, smaller and more sustainable families, and disease prevention, concludes a new report from the Council’s Center for Universal Education by Senior Fellow Gene Sperling, former national economic adviser in the Clinton administration, and Barbara Herz, who brings more than twenty years of expertise at the U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Treasury, and the World Bank.

The report summarizes the extensive body of research on the state of girls' education in the developing world today; the impact of educating girls on families, economies, and nations; and the most promising approaches to increasing girls' enrollment and educational quality.

The overall conclusions are straightforward: educating girls pays off substantially. While challenges still remain, existing research provides us quidance on how to make significant progress.

Barbara Herz, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, has worked on and written about girls' education for more than 20 years. When she worked at the World Bank from 1981-1999, she launched the Women in Development division and then headed another division covering education, health, and population in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

Gene B. Sperling is the director of the Center for Unviersal Education at the Council on Foreign Relations. He previously served as national economic adviser to President Clinton from 1996-2000, and represented the Clinton administration at the 2000 UN World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal.

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