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Activities and instruments
Education for women and girls
"Investment in girls’ education yields some of the highest returns of all development investments, yielding both private and social benefits that accrue to individuals, families, and society at large."
The level of education of women and men still differs greatly in developing countries. For every 100 boys who went to primary school in developing countries in 2007 only on average 95 girls did so; in 1999 that figure was 91 girls for every 100 boys. According to UNESCO only 53 out of a total of 171 countries for which data were available had achieved gender equality in primary and secondary schools in 2007. There are diverse reasons for that: needing to help with the housework, lack of female teachers and other female role models, being married at a young age, families' fear of sexual harassment and violence, a long and dangerous route to school, or the lack of separate sanitary facilities for girls in schools.
The consequence is that nearly two thirds of the approximately 776 million people without basic literacy skills around the world are women.
German development cooperation thus supports basic education and access to education for girls and young women. Literacy and motivational campaigns are used to encourage women to make up for the basic education they missed out on and to get qualifications.
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