Kofi Annan Quotes

There is a reason you keep hearing about the power of educating girls in the developing world. It's a reason so simple that you will probably view it with suspicion, as I once did. It's this: educating girls works. Really works.

When you empower women and help them thrive, you help their communities thrive. Women shoulder the burden disproportionately.

What we are learning around the world is that if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish. If women are free from violence, their families will flourish. If women have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish. And when families flourish, communities and nations do as well.

When the history of African development is written, it will be clear that a turning point involved the empowerment of women.

The most poor and backward areas in the world are those in which women are subjugated and exploited. Improving the situation of the woman improves the family, the community, and by extension the whole country.

More countries have understood that women's equality is a prerequisite for development.

Investing in women and girls may once have been considered a radical notion or even a waste of resources, but in most places in the world today, women and girls are increasingly recognized as a critical link to greater prosperity, political stability, better health and public policy.

Investments in women are positively correlated to growth, prosperity, stability, democracy, health - and vital to our national security. We cannot write off the talent of half the world and expect to confront our challenges.

There is simply no way our nation can progress if its women population is left behind.

When we liberate the economic potential of women, we elevate the economic performance of communities, nations, and the world.

Women must be full partners in development, so they can lift themselves and their communities out of poverty.

Once you have women liberated, it's amazing how many other problems get resolved--pover ty, education, health. Women are the key in any community.

I firmly believe that if you help a woman, then you educate a child, you help the family. Because women are very focused on health care and education and on the family. So if you help a woman, you help the family, you help the village, you help the country. And so empowering women is a very important part of moving, not just women forward, but the economy of the nation forward. Particularly in very substandard nations.

If you invest in a girl or a woman, you are investing in everybody else.

We have put our country on solid ground, but let me tell you: The next five years are much, much more important. The next five years are about turning the good news in our economy into a good life for you and your family.

Giving women education, work, the ability to control their own income, inherit and own property, benefits the society. If a woman is empowered, her children and her family will be better off. If families prosper, the village prospers, and eventually so does the whole country.

Education, doing homework, is the way to lift up girls. Around the world, where girls are educated, the economy and the standard of living rise.

When you educate a girl, you kick-start a cycle of success. It makes economic sense. It makes social sense. It makes moral sense. But, it seems, it's not common sense yet.

When girls are educated, you get effects that cascade throughout society.

Grameen Bank was formed as an institution owned by its borrower members, who are poor women. Through its unique decision-making process, Grameen Bank has given millions of women the means to emerge from the shadows in a male-dominated society and to make something of themselves.

Countries with higher levels of gender equality have higher economic growth. Companies with more women on their boards have higher returns. Peace agreements that include women are more successful. Parliaments with more women take up a wider range of issues - including health, education, anti-discrimination, and child support.

TED Women will focus on the ideas and innovations championed by women and girls. These cover everything from community development to economic growth to biodynamic farming to robotics to medical treatments to the use of technology for personal safety and peace making.

We know we cannot achieve our twin goals of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity without ending poverty and creating equality for women and girls.

Investing in women's lives is an investment in sustainable development, in human rights, in future generations - and consequently in our own long-term national interests.