We would like to thank mrs. Obama, mrs. Bush and all the wonderful first ladies who are here. We are delighted to have you. In the United States, we have a very powerful notion that we all hear about from the time were children that education is the key to a Better Future for us and for each successive generation. I heard about it in my family where i was the first person to graduate from college. Mrs. Obama spoke about it today. I think it was a similar experience for her. Here in the United States, we refer to it as the American Dream. But in my travels around the world as the ambassador for global womens issues, i have discovered it isnt really just an American Dream at all. Its a universal dream. Millions of parents want their children, girls and boys, to learn more, to do better, to achieve greater things than they did. I saw it at st. Josephs girl school in sierra leone. We all saw it with the girls trying to hard and against such incredible odds to again an education in northern nigeria. These girls and thieir parents know what the data shows us, that Girls Education is one of the smartest Development Investments that the International Community can make. Education increases a girls individual earning power by 10 to 20 , the majority of which she invests back in her family. Girls who stay in School Longer are up to six times less likely to be married as children. Girls attendance in formal school is correlated with later childbearing, lower rates of hiv and aids, fewer hours of domestic and labor market work and greater gender equal. A child born to a mother who can read is 50 more likely to live past the age of five and more likely to remain healthy, safe and in school herself. We know that keeping girls in school through secondary school most importantly is better for girls, their families and their communities. Its absolutely critical to expanding womens meaningful participation in the work force and its the key to the universal dream of empowering the next generation to do better than the last. Im so pleased to be here today with our distinguished panelists to talk about what we can do to ensure that girls in africa get the education they deserve and they need to become the leaders of tomorrow. Let me briefly introduce our wonderful panelists. Dr. Sara ruto, we are not in order here. Dr. Sara ruto is the regional director for uwezo west africa, operating in kenya, ouganda and tanzania who draws attention to childrens learning. She will talk about completion of primary education and about getting parents involved in supporting education. The honorable aicha bah diallo is the founder of faway. Shes working to make sure education is tailored to address the needs of girls. Ann cotton is the founder and president of camfed inter international. Miss cotton will speak about empowering the next generation of Women Leaders in working with government and other partners. And finally, shelley esque is board chair of intel and Vice President of legal and Corporate Affairs to the intel corporation. The Intel Foundation is working to give girls and women more opportunity to participate in the global economy. She will speak about the importance of empowering girls through access to technology. Let me begin with my first question to dr. Ruto. Sara, i understand that uwezo used an innovative device to improve literacy. What barriers do you see that keeps g girls from getting education . What interventions do you think are most successful . Thank you. I think when you are looking at the barriers, its against tremendous progress that we have made. Our evidence along allow me to talk about the evidence. We reached a million children since we started in 2009. It shows s 90 who have had education. Then theres the 10 that are missing. They are often found in the poverty hot spots. They are to be found in rural, remote districts that the districts are not country specific. If you go to kenya and ouganda, they are neighboring. And the reasons that are keeping them out have been talked about by so many people. Attitu attitude, religion, practices Much Research has told us about them. We need to listen to the evidence a little bit more. But even the 90 who are in school, they have only been there for five years. When you look at the numbers who are getting to school in terms of gender parity, its almost equal boys and girls. And at that level, because we test the childrens ability to do literacy and numbers, that level, they are not any better or worse than boys. But later on, you will find that girls drop faster than boys in the preteenages. School inefficiency is affecting our children, because our data tells us that in uganda, for example, the school is supposed to be seven years. Children are taking 11 years to complete. The older a girl is in school, the more vulnerable she becomes. We need to look at that. In terms of the successes, let me talk about three of them. The first one i brought the dad the data is telling us that when the mother has primary and secondary ed indication, you see her daughters and children have Higher Learning outcomes. The evidence is there. Not so much for the men, fathers, but more so for the mothers. The second piece of evidence which we need to be looking at is the role of school leadership. Where a school has got a dynamic leader, in charge of 500, maybe 1,000 children, they serve girls and boys. And the third is the girls resilience. When you introduce girls to many activities, you know, whether its in sports, they learn confidence and when things are bad, then they will have to draw on their own strength. So building on a girls resilience becomes important. As you have seen, i started with the mothers and then the school and then the girl herself. All of us have a role to play. Could you talk a little bit about the role of the family . In particular, what you can do to convince families, particularly when they are facing situations of limited resources, of how you deal with that problem and convince them if they have, you know, a couple of children or if they have to choose between sending boys or girls to school, how you enro encourage them to send the gir s girls to school. When you see that 90 of the children are in school and its near gender parity, for me it looks like at least half the battle is done. Because many parents believe and are sending their girls to school. I think the biggest thing that will lead to skepticism that will destroy this belief is in our girls, our children have nothing to do for the years they spent in schools. So the owe us in is on us. Those of us seated over here are evidence of the success of schooling. This has to be spread to all the others. And i think if we do that, i remember when i went to a village one time and we had a fundraising and the daughters sent many to the church because our mothers told us this was very important. Later on when i met the pastor, he told us, you know, its important to send girls. Did you see how they built the church . It was evidence of success that will be what will drive us. And show that actually its worthwhile to educate your children, your girls, your boys. You are the evidence . Thank you. Aicha, i understand you are working in 33 african countries to foster positive policies towards Girls Education. You worked with governments, communities, Civil Society to help make education for girls a priority. Could you talk a little bit about what you see that works best, what more can be done and if you could deal with some specific examples of genderbased violence, Vocational Training and give us your based on your experience what your views are about the best opportunities. Let me start by giving you some statistics. We have 30 million kids out of school, 54 are girls. 22 million adolescents are out of school, 54 are girls. Therefore, we have to do something. We cant just sit and wait. We have to Work Together. To get to these people the right to quality education. We are working for gender equity and equality for all children, in particular girls. What we have done is to deliver up innovations to convince. Because if you dont convince, you cannot reach the results you want. We start with the advocacy at the community level. I think you touched about it. You have to convince both male and female. Because these two are the ones who have to take the decisions, are we going to take the girls or the boys to school . You have to tell them and explain to them the value of education, the benefit of educating girls. I think today we have seen it. This video has shown us. I dont have to go through it. What we have found out is today men are supporting Girls Education. Women support Girls Education. They even form what we call mother clubs. They are the ones now who are tracking the girls that are going to school. So School Attendance is looked after by the women clubs. We have another innovation which is very important. Its empowering girls and boys. Its to speak out. In the school, men the girls and boys get together, they identify their problems, they analyze them and they together find solution to solve them. What we have found out through grammar, songs and activities, we have found out that now girls are empowered to speak out. They are selfconfident. They have leadership skills. They are fighting against what they call culture cultural values. Now, they know that they have rights. They claim their rights. We have another innovation, giving boundaries. The first lady from ghana talked about it. When you give to a girl who is bright, it makes a difference. So we give to more than 46,000 girls and boys. 30 were boys. You see, you cannot just discriminate boys either. We have to pull them they have to Work Together. With the foundation, we have are going to have 1,200 scholars in rwanda. It has been announced already. And in ethiopia, 800 scholarships. Its going to make a big difference. You educate a girl, you will get a family and a nation. A boy is just a person. [ laughter ] we also have what we call the center of excellence. Im mentioning it because bush visited one. In that school, we transform it into a gender responsive school. Girls are empowered and boys also. Teachers are trained to be gender aware. Now they know how to treat boys and girls equally so that the girl girls in math and science is better. And its amazing how the school now has an environment which is conducive to learning. There is no gender bias at all, which is important. We have trained out of School Adolescent Girls in six countries which were affected. What we did was to give them the skills and competency in the disciplines that will be male recipients, such as mechanics, electricity, carpentry. And they did very well. Before they finish, we go and lob y lobby we lobby the companies to hire them when they finish their studies. It made a big difference. When you are confidence in a girl, she can do i would say even better than the boys. Im saying that because africa in 2011, population was 1 billion. 20 were youth. In 2015, 50 of the population is going to be youth. Therefore, africa will have to invest in its youth in particular girls if you want our continentdynamic, productive continent. I believe in Girls Education. If we are here, its because we were educated. My father said, all my girls have to go to school. Therefore, please, lets get together and work for Girls Education. [ applause ] thank you very much. Id like to ask you a little bit about camfeds unique approach, which i understand you call the virtuous cycle, which i would like you to explain. Camfed has educated girls since 1993 and supported young women to help tackle poverty working through national and local systems. I think its really critical in many of the communities. I would like to understand how you have worked with girls through development and education and beyond that. If you could give us if you would also explain the virtuous cycle, i would appreciate that. Yes, of course. Well, we work in rural areas. And thats where poverty is deepest. Really, families are not in a position to make choices, in fact. They make decisions based on the economic realities. The choices are forced. So we understand and work and respect that decision making. So the process is one of partnership with parents, inclusion of parents. And the point of transition from primary to secondary school is where so many girls drop out, because the costs of education rise. So our partnership with parents means that they dont have the means but they certainly have an abundance of love and are our data shows that that support they get at home, that encouragement, we are seeing between 88 and 93 attendance across five countries. The numbers of girls are high, 108,000 in secondary education. Parents are not withholding their girls from going to school, domestic and agricultural schools. At schools they teach a network because girls come to school with problems. We have teacher mentors across 5,000 government schools. That is having a Significant Impact on progression, which is 90 across all programs. You mentioned traditional leaders. T they are some of our most powerful advocates. One leader said some years ago, he said, i have understood in speaking with girls that they are refugees in their own mother land. He is an advocate and theres a network of leaders working with us, particularly on Child Protection and child marriage. And, of course, government, really our partnership with government is the foundation. We work in government schools. Our partnership there is a district level and national level. Our directors in africa all recruited from africa as policy work very closely with ministries of education. They share data. Strategies. They are at the policy table. Its really a very Inclusive Program for the education of girls. And we are seeing significant improvements in academic results. All those poorest children, when they leave secondary education, what next . They are confronted sometimes by a lack of employment and often they will be in a position where they are under pressure to marry and also they make go to town in search of work where they are very, very vulnerable. So at that point we support beyond secondary education depending on grades and aspirations into university, into Technical Training colleges and with Business Training and loans and grants. Thats where you really see the investment in education start to pay highly significant dividends. The family as well as themselves. But how do you make that dividend grow . How do you make that dividend grow for the district, for the nation . So what we have done is created an alumni. So that is the completion of the virtuous cycle. This is the leadership emerging of young women. There are 24,435 graduates in the Network Across ghana, tanzania, zambia. Oechl t extraordinary young women. One indicator is that every one of the members is supporting between two and three children into school outside her own family. Shes also supporting within her family. So this is really the power. And i think what they say we are united by background over poverty and a commitment to change. They are proud of their roots. So often poverty carries with it the marks of embarrassment and shame. But they have transformed that into pride and empathy. I think thats at the heart of their power. Thats at the paheart of their activism. We have an incredibly powerful group of people here, first spouses. I am curious about how organizations, including governments, spouses, engage in this vital piece of the womens empowerment process. Yes, its an extraordinarily powerful. Im deeply honored to be here. The partnership is wide and broad. The partnership with the private as well as government. One of our partners is the master card. We are working on a program of support secondary and tertiary education. The young women and girls in the program have prepared a chronicle of their experiences for the first ladies that they want to share. It will give you an indication, one of they were in junior high school, she was living with her family in one room. It was so noisy that she didnt have time and opportunity to study. So what she decided to do was to go to bed at 7 00 p. M. Every evening, to get up at 2 00 a. M. And to study when everyone else was asleep. Then go to school. Now she wants to be a pediatrician. What she says is, i want to be a pediatrician because i see my role as being with children. I love children and i see their vulnerability. Thats a theme that we hear time and time again. The girls and young women whom we support, who havent had a background in education, sharing our personal experiences, my grandmother left school at 12. No one more committed to education than she was. Read a book was her constant mantra to me. That commitment to education grows exponentially when you are suddenly having that opportunity. Suddenly, that latent power becomes live because of your education. So they all say, we want to be doctors because we want to change our communities. We want to be midwives because we see women suffering. We want to tell the world about our community. Its about them but what they can do in the world. First ladies, they are so ready to work with you. As you have mentioned, they have tremendous ideas to share. The platforms that you have to really bring their voices forward are just extraordinariry. I would urge you to use the platforms effectively. Thank you so much. Shelley, i have a couple of questions for you. I was struck by the all of these networks of people that ann mentioned and that it strikes me that that might be agoa good project to network the people together. Not that intel needs anything else to do. It seems there are so many groups of people here that we could try to get together. In any case, the internet is a powerful tool for education. Intel is doing so much to address gender gap. I was curious about how you see technology really advancing literacy and Economic Opportunities