Joyce Banda, the former president of Malawi, has warned development interventions which focus on girls aged 10 and older may be “too late” and called for an emphasis to also be placed on younger children.
Her comments came in the wake of a new United Nations Population Fund’s State of the World Population 2016 report, published last week, which said the future of development will be shaped by what happens to 10-year-old girls in poor countries.
Speaking at the Girl Summit event in Washington, D.C., Banda said: “I would ask us to look back and focus on girl children aged zero to 10. I am making a case that this is an age where we need to start focusing our attention.”
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About the author
Sophie Edwards
Sophie Edwards is a Devex Contributing Reporter covering global education, water and sanitation, and innovative financing, along with other topics. She has previously worked for NGOs, and the World Bank, and spent a number of years as a journalist for a regional newspaper in the U.K. She has a master's degree from the Institute of Development Studies and a bachelor's from Cambridge University.
