Rob Wegner

There are unspeakable evils in the world.  Real leaders must accept responsibility to address those evils. The option of doing nothing does not exist for leaders.

The central moral challenge of the nineteenth century was slavery. The central moral challenge of the twenty century was totalitarianism The central moral challenge of the twenty first century is gender equality.

Are there more men or woman in the world? Men. In fact, in U.S. and Europe, there are more woman and they live longer. In the rest of the world, that is not the case.  One world class economist has shown, there are 60-160 million missing females in the current world population.

Why are they missing?

1) Scarce resources.  When there isn’t enough food to go around, the woman are last in line.  Often boys will be fed, while the girls are starved.  1-5 years old in india, the girls have a 50% higher mortality rate.  

Education and Jobs: One of the most practical ways to raise the livelihood of people around the world is to educate woman and bring them into the formal labor force.  Education and jobs. We think woman and girls are part of the solution, not the problem.  If you education them and give opportunity for work, they will find a better way to solve the problems. 

Why Eduction and Jobs Will Make a Difference in Generating Resources:

a) Overpopulation. If you educate a girl, she tends to have fewer children.  

b) The problem isn’t just that people are living on less then a dollar a day. It’s not just that they take in little, they also spend it very poorly. Men tend to spend 20% of their pay on alcohol, prostitution, and festivals.  If you could move that 20% toward education and healthcare, that would make a huge difference.

c) Resources: Bill Gates speaking in Saudi Arabia on technology. 2/3rds of the auditorium was men, they were separated by a barrier from the woman. A man asked, “We want to be in the top ten tech countries in the wold. Will we make it?”  Bill gates, “Not if you don’t utilize half your work force.  Woman are an important economic resource. If we aren’t mobilizing half the work force, the entire economy suffers.

2. Sex Trafficking is part of the missing females. her husband bought two slaves. they cost 150/person. At this price, the girls are disposable.  Each sex slave can earn up to 40,000. 

3. Maternal Mortality also is apart of the missing females. In america, the brith of a girl is celebrated.  Not so in the developing world.  Mothers around the world die in childbirth because they are poor, rural, and female.  A woman dies once every two minutes in the world.

What will help? A combination of the following..

Mircofinance, micro-lending, and mirco-savings. These can be transformative. 

Education. If you do this at a national level, it can change the course of a nation.

Woman in the Workforce.  

AID funding is not effective. Dead Aid by Willam Easterly has demonstrated this. We must teach to fish, not simply give out the fish. The best ways to help people are often not the sexiest.  For example, in many cases, $4 deworming pills are more effective in terms of education than building new schools.  Why? If they are dewormed they are more energetic, focused, and engaged.

There are very few things in life that can change your set point for happiness. One of those things is contributing to a cause that is larger than yourself. 

If we were born in America, we have won “the lottery” of life, how will we discharge that responsibility. 

A great next step?  Sponsor a child through Compassion International.  

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A personal note: We’ve been sponsoring kids through Compassion for years. Currently, Sangeetha is our little lady in India.  We’ve visited her a couple times.  It’s the real deal. 1.2 million children are currently being sponsored all over the world.