Publication

This background note identifies the discriminatory social institutions, laws, norms and practices that deny girls the ability to reach their full potential. The authors find that mainstream development actors increasingly recognize that investment in young women and girls is an effective and necessary means of reaching development goals. High-profile campaigns have made the link between poverty and discrimination against girls explicit. Some major successes have been achieved, especially concerning gender parity in primary education, but girls throughout the developing world continue to be constrained by the inter-generational transmission of poverty and gender inequality.