The devastating effect of poverty on women in Africa:
- Above 80 percent of farmers in Africa are women.
- More than 40 percent of women in Africa do not have access to basic education.
- If a girl is educated for six years or more, as an adult her prenatal care, postnatal care and childbirth, survival rates, will dramatically and consistently improve.
- Educated mothers immunize their children 50 percent more often than mothers who are not educated.
- AIDS spreads twice as quickly among uneducated girls than among girls that have even some schooling.
- The children of a woman with five years of primary school education have a survival rate 40 percent higher than children of women with no education.
- A woman living in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dyingin pregnancy or childbirth.
- This compares with a 1 in 3,700 risk for a woman from North America.
- Every minute , a woman somewhere dies in pregnancy or childbirth. This adds up to 1,400 women dying each day —an estimated 529,000 each year—from pregnancy-related causes.
- Almost half of births in developing countries take place without the help of a skilled birth attendant.
