Girls count: a global investment and action agenda.

This report is about why and how to put girls at the center of development. It is about how the health of economies and families depends on protecting the rights of and fostering opportunities for todays girls. It is about how far girls in many developing countries have come-but how far we remain from a world in which girls rights are respected. With adolescent girls the case is perfectly clear that the economic and human rights agendas are perfectly aligned: in new global economy girls and young women are no longer as sheltered by their parents and communities but they also are not armed with education or understanding of their own rights to protect themselves in the world. Unfortunately adolescent girls are awkward for governments and donors to think about with their physical sexuality but their nonadult vulnerability. Ministries of health and education do not have a mandate to serve them ministries of social welfare have more politically rewarding programs to operate and donor agencies find it far easier to promote investments in very young children and older mothers than to deal with the complicated and controversy-generating age between childhood and adulthood. (excerpt)