The exclusion of girls from education is an issue of justice. But it's also an issue of economics because it's holding families, communities, and nations back. The chiefs are often a bridge between the traditional and the modern world and are very powerful implements to change.
If women have an income, they will invest a higher proportion of that income in their children than men do. So you do get those societal returns very quickly.
In the family pattern, men support boys and women support girls, and because women have far fewer financial resources, there is less money to invest in girls.
Key to success for the education of young African girls is building a model that works with communities, schools, and national Ministries of Education to build a system of protection and support around girls, ensuring that they receive the education that is their right. Financial support is provided alongside a social support system.
Money is hardly neutral. Its connection to power makes it a highly charged social phenomenon and a mediator of relationships. Because it has historically been controlled by men, it has given men a tool for controlling women.
My journey started with the understanding that poor parents share the universal desire for education for their children. No family in our experience has ever turned down educational support for their daughter.
Never take your eye off the ball. Always remember that you and everyone on the team is the servant of the cause - in our case, girls' education and young women's leadership in Africa.
Poverty is more than a material experience; it's a psychological state as well, one that is infused with anxiety. And decision-making is very complex because every decision you make has an impact on your future and survival.
The aim of militants such as Boko Haram, whose very name means 'Western education is a sin,' is to sow hatred and enmity between Muslim and Christian communities, which have co-existed largely peacefully for generations. Education, in particular the education of women, is a threat to Boko Haram's goals.
The culture of philanthropy is alive and very well in Africa. International aid strengthens and extends it, but in the communities where I have spent time, it is all-pervasive.
I recall an 18-year-old girl named Rachel in Zambia who was given a grant to start a business of her choosing. She decided to breed goats so she could sell the meat and the milk, and donate the kids to orphan children. She herself was an orphan, stepping into young adulthood with no resources, and it was her first opportunity to earn her own money.
The organization I founded in 1993, Camfed (the Campaign for Female Education), was in large part inspired by the generosity shown to me by a community in a village in Zimbabwe. During my visit to Mola to research girls' exclusion from education, the people of Mola fed me, shaded me, walked and talked with me for hours each day.
The prevailing view was that girls were outside of school because of the resistance of families to their education. But when I visited a local village, what everyone told me - the chiefs, the parents, the children - was that girls weren't in school because it was the boys that had a better chance of getting paid work in the future.
The work being done by Linklaters to help organizations understand keys to success in the development sector serves as an important international affairs issue and crucial element in how all of us work to support service provision in impoverished communities in a lasting and effective way.
The world has proved enough times that it can scale cruelty and violence. Compassion and kindness can and must be scaled to create a world of justice for children.
There are 45 million children in Africa who are not in school. While other children are learning, exploring, and growing in the myriad ways that children were meant to grow, these children are trapped in a life of constant struggle. Without education, how can they be expected to escape such struggle? How can their children?
When I first worked in Zimbabwe, I was a complete novice. I was doing a study, and I continued to learn more and more through the years. And where I have learned most is in the village, from the communities.
Women's vulnerability around money is hardly exclusive to Africa. Throughout the world, women struggle with financial power. In the West, women's financial literacy is notably lower than men's. That lack of knowledge means that many women slide into poverty when they become widows.
You can't raise the aspirations of a child and then leave them hanging. Poverty can't be solved by a project. It's solved by a relationship, collaboration.
