Reuters – Zoe Tabary
“Around the world, 16 million girls between the ages of six and 11 never start school, many because they are married off or forced to work to help their families financially, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said in a report. It said developing countries could reap a dividend of $21 billion a year if all 10-year-old girls completed secondary education, echoing studies that show a correlation between improved literacy for girls and higher earnings later in life. “Education is the world’s best investment. Whenever a girl’s potential goes unrealized, we all lose,” Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of UNFPA, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview.”(more)