The plight of women and girls in the developing world is a book of sobering stories with very few happy endings. Year after year, we are reminded of some of the most jarring injustices of our time, most of which go unrecognized, let alone unpunished. And yet, hope for action is on the horizon. The Clinton Global Initiative, along with some inspirational stories to both humble and inspire us, just might have signal the arrival of this increasingly crucial issue to the forefront of the agenda.
The 5th annual CGI meeting served as the gathering grounds for hundreds of influential leaders, scholars, business executives, celebrities, and journalists to discuss and engage in multi-sector cooperation towards a common development goal. Tackling poverty alleviation, climate change, and the promotion of economic opportunity – CGI annually highlights the most critical development issues of our time – topics worthy of the utmost global recognition and concern. This year CGI is again addressing these subjects, but to the hope of many there was a new issue on the agenda: the subject of investments in girls and women.
Adding this new component of CGI may very well begin elevating the issues of women’s inclusion to a top priority on the global development agenda. CGI has an opportunity to truly assert women’s development, making it an argument that can no longer be viewed as ‘soft’ or only relevant to women, elevating it from a distant second relative to poverty alleviation, AIDS prevention, climate change, etc. to other development issues. In fact, one could even argue that women’s development underpins the advancement of each of these agendas.
Investing in women has a domino effect of sorts, with women’s empowerment adding to the prosperity of entire societies. Women and girls who earn money reinvest up to 90% of it into their families, as compared to only 30% or 40 % by men. Furthermore, if girls’ enrollment in schools increases by only 10%, the country’s economy will grow steadily by 3%, showing again how investments in girls and women benefit both genders, community, and country. Top scholars and leaders are arguing more and more that investing in women, unequivocally, simply makes sense for everyone, and it is time we looked at how this agenda could play out, and took note of some of the key changemakers in this movement.
Ola Abu Ghaib is an example of how one woman’s commitment to create positive change has repercussions beyond herself. Ola is a Palestinian who has lived the majority of her life confined to a wheel chair, excluded by her society and hidden from view. Disabled Arab women suffer significantly higher rates of abuse than non-disabled women, and families, schools, and other institutions are often negligent of the needs of disabled women in the Arab region. Many of them remain hidden inside their parent’s home, unmarried and uneducated. Palestine’s current landscape itself severely limits the empowerment of its entire population, and thus Ola’s country, gender, and health all have forced her to the outermost point of exclusion.
It is here though that we witness a departure from the typical paradigm of women being forced to succumb to marginalization. In 2007, Ola founded ‘Stars of Hope’, the first organization in the Arab world for women with disabilities. It is completely run by disabled women, providing direct services and training to empower others like them to contribute to society. Ola also offers them coaching for negotiation, presentation, and communication skills, which further affirms their identities as engaged and active citizens.
Building Stars of Hope from the ground up tested her strength, ingenuity, and innovation like nothing before. After surviving the bureaucratic struggle to register her NGO officially, Ola faced the stark and troubling reality that there were no statistics on women with disabilities in the Palestinian territories. As such, to ensure appropriate planning and dissemination of services, Ola decided she had to establish her own database, which called upon her to travel throughout Palestine, interviewing women to obtain the most precise understanding of the challenges and concerns of disabled Palestinian women and how Stars of Hope could best meet these needs.
In addition to affecting thousands of disabled women, community members, and leaders in the West Bank, Ola now also sits on the board of the global Disability Rights Fund, established in the wake of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In further recognition of her impact, Ola was elected an Ashoka Fellow in 2007, signaling her entrance into the world’s leading association of social entrepreneurs.
Ola’s life and work are a humbling wake up call for us all – a declaration that, in fact, realities can be changed even by the unlikeliest of heroes. She is a living example of how women’s empowerment is not simply about putting more money in a woman’s hand, but also about giving her the opportunity to drive change. Ola gives more than a means to cope – she provides a key to advancement, and we must applaud her as much as we should learn from her.
During CGI’s four-day conference, deals were made, partnerships came to fruition, and those who were willing to invest in a better future gathered strength. And yet, at the end of the day, the true leaders in creating social change will not be those with the ability to raise billion-dollar funds to invest in women – but rather the women themselves, like Ola, who are spearheading the change donors are propagating. If CGI can gather our most influential leaders to recognize the imperatives of women’s development, they will need people like Ola to make them into believers – the two cannot move forward separately. Global partnerships may be able to move money, but local changemakers, like Ola, move people.
Image Source: Eventsforchange.com
