Advancing education and choice for women and girls in the Sahel.
We envision a healthy and resilient Sahel where women and girls are educated and free to make critical life choices.
Why the Sahel?
The Sahel is a geographical region of Africa that lies between the Sahara Desert to the north and the Sudanian Savanna to the south. The population of the francophone Sahel countries and northern Nigeria will grow by more than two and a half times by the middle of the century, to 450 million people. At the same time, climate change will have serious negative effects on people's ability to grow staple crops - risking the food security of the region.
Why Women and Girls?
Women in the Sahel are among the least empowered in the world. Many don’t have a say in their own basic life choices, such as staying in school, seeking healthcare, when and whom to marry or whether to work outside the home. The region’s low median marriage age, high birthrates among adolescent mothers, rapid population growth, and low educational attainment are deeply intertwined with its social and environmental problems and unrest. By the same token, empowering women and girls by raising educational attainment, delaying marriage, and improving family planning access can dramatically improve outcomes in the Sahel and beyond.
Voluntary, rights-based family planning is fundamental to women's empowerment and health. Beyond the health benefits of contraception — preventing unintended pregnancies, averting unsafe abortions and reducing maternal death — family planning offers a plethora of economic benefits to families, communities and countries. Every dollar invested in wider access to contraceptives yields $120 of annual social, economic, and environmental benefits — the highest return on investment of any social investment, second only to universal trade. Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, former Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund, called it “the most important intervention for human development in the world.”
Why Family Planning?
The Sahel region has some of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, and girls typically drop out of school when they get married. Staying in school longer enables girls to have more self-determination and is a key factor in delaying marriage and lowering fertility rates. Women who stay in school marry later, earn more, and have smaller, healthier families. They also are the hub of more resilient communities and stronger economies. Every 1% increase in girls’ secondary school completion rates in the Sahel leads to a 0.3% increase in national Gross National Income. If all girls in the Sahel could complete secondary school by 2030, GDP would rise an additional 10% on average, with even bigger cumulative economic returns after that.
Why Education?
Improving access to family planning and quality education are strategic, mutually reinforcing interventions that enhance self-determination for women and girls. Together they have the highest cost-benefit ratio of any other social investment, and offer maximal leverage for positive outcomes in the Sahel region and beyond. Educated, empowered women tend to choose smaller families, slowing population growth in a rights-based context and generating a “demographic dividend” that can put the Sahel on the path away from poverty, scarcity, unrest and migration, and toward the Sustainable Development Goals. Gains in education and family planning lead to gains in other sectors, making Sahel communities healthier, more resilient, more prosperous, and ultimately more stable and secure.
Leveraging Better Outcomes
“As we work towards ending poverty across the developing world, we know that educating adolescent girls and getting health services to women will lead to greater prosperity not just for individual families but also for entire economies.”
- World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim
Contact
We would love to hear from you!
Email
info@oasissahel.org
Address
PO Box 10144
Berkeley, CA 94709
Phone
+1.415.935.4812