International Women's Day

As my readership is mostly female and the Women's Right's Movement is very close to my heart I decided to theme today's post around International Women's day.

The UN theme for International Women’s Day 2012 is Empower Women – End Hunger and Poverty.

That isn't as some people have suggested just about ending hunger and poverty for women, it's about how helping women in developing nations get access to a few basic things can help end poverty for everybody.

For example if women in developing nations had better access to safe and reliable birth control this would pave the way to letting women choose when/if to have families and how many children to have in their families, which would in turn help both overpopulation and go a long way to helping prevent so many children dying because their just isn't enough food to go around.

If pregnant women had access to adiquite nutrition not only would themselves be healthier but their children would also be born healthier.

Women in developing countries, because of their positions as household caregivers, are more likely than men to spend income on food, which will nourish the household children and lead to long-term health and cognitive benefits. With access to credit, women can start up small businesses which will contribute to household income and again, allow for household food purchase. Microfinancing of women's agricultural projects has also been shown to have a positive impact on food production. Essentially this latter point is about how getting 'half of the population' (excluding children) economically active is going to help with ending hunger because of increased food production and increased access to food resources.