World Bank and Nike launch adolescent girls gender inititative

We are hoping to tap into this. I am currently doing research on the best grants to apply for. However, we are also planning on doing more networking and sending out end of the year Giving Letters to at least 500 people.
-Lizzy Scully

Why adolescent girls?
Today, 1.5 billion people are ages 12–24 worldwide, nine out of ten of these young people live in developing countries, the most ever in history. Of these, approximately 625 million are girls and young women, ages 10-24. This is the next generation of economic and social actors.

Adolescence is a critical time to intervene to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty, by helping girls stay in school, build capital assets, resist early pregnancy and marriage and a future of low earnings. Furthermore, investing in adolescent girls’ economic opportunities can have a large development impact with long term benefits to economic growth.

Closing the gender gaps in school enrollment could increase per capita growth by as much as 3%.
An extra year of secondary school for girls can increase their future wages by 10% to 20%.
Progress in education by girls is not matched by higher labor force participation by young women where by age 24 young women lag far behind men in labor force participation.

Purpose
The Adolescent Girls Initiative aims at smoothing the transition from school to productive employment by, among other interventions, helping girls complete education, build skills that match market demand, find mentors and job placements, offer incentives to potential employers to retain, and train young women or to overcome some of the cultural barriers to young women's employment. These interventions will be tested and evaluated for impact.

Origins of the Initiative
This Adolescent Girls Initiative has its origins in President Zoellick’s six commitments announced on April 11, 2008 when he accepted the MDG3 torch and the challenge to “launch a work program with private and public sector leaders on ‘young women count for economic development’”. Since then the World Bank and the Nike Foundation have been at work designing the first pilot in Liberia, due to execute in January 2009, to help smooth girls’ transition from school to quality work.

Our Partners
Governments of Liberia, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the City of Milan, Goldman Sachs, The Nike Foundation, and Standard Chartered.

The Adolescent Girls Initiative is part of the World Bank Group’s Gender Action Plan--Gender Equality as Smart Economics, which is helping increase women’s economic opportunities by improving their access to the labor market, agricultural land and tools, credit, and infrastructure services.