FOREWORD
Madeleine K. Albright

THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT HOPE,
based on reality.

IT RESTS ON THE PREMISE that the ancient enemies of human progress — poverty, ignorance, and disease — can be defeated, or at least forced to retreat, through the mpowerment of women and girls. As evidence, this book presents not a wealth of statistics or a detailed explanation of a complex economic model. Instead, it offers the stories of some remarkable women who are working every day to transform their communities and build a brighter future for their families.

THROUGH THE STUNNING PHOTOGRAPHY and straightforward commentary of Phil Borges, readers come to know how women such as Fahima in Afghanistan, Abay in Ethiopia, Hasina in Bangladesh, and Violeta in Ecuador are improving and enriching their own lives, and those of the people around them.

THE EXPLOITS OF THESE WOMEN are not detailed in the newspapers or featured on headline television
news. Their contributions occur off-camera, in remote villages and crowded neighborhoods. But taken
together, their efforts and those of millions like them have immense power. Experience has shown that when women have the freedom to make their own economic and social choices, the chains of poverty can be broken; families are strengthened; income is used for more productive purposes; the spread of sexually transmitted disease slows; and socially constructive values are more likely to be handed down to the young.

CYNICS HAVE LONG SUGGESTED that development assistance, so easily dismissed as ”foreign aid,”
is money down a rat hole. The truth is that programs that are poorly designed, transitory, insensitive to local conditions, or overly politicized are doomed to fail. But programs that enable or encourage women to participate more fully in the economic and political life of their societies have a strong record of success. I have seen this myself in traveling throughout the emerging world, where experts from humanitarian organizations such as CARE have identified strategies that consistently lead to positive results.

THROUGH DECADES OF OBSERVATION and study, these experts have learned that reproductive
health services can save the lives of millions of women and children, and lead to better long-term health for entire families. They have learned that ensuring access to basic education for girls provides the firmest possible foundation for social development. They have learned that training women to employ low-cost measures to protect against unsafe water or disease-carrying insects can dramatically improve public health. They have learned that village savings and loan groups can enable women to start small businesses, create jobs, and begin to accumulate capital. They have learned that working for change does not mean simply imposing one’s views on another, and that harmful practices, such as female circumcision, are best countered not by blunt condemnation but by reasoned explanation, in which the religious and cultural justification for the customs are analyzed, the pain caused by the process is fully understood, and a new consensus is reached.

FINALLY, THESE EXPERTS have learned that the subjection and sidelining of women in the twenty-
first century is not only wrong, but also economically unsustainable. No country can make progress if half
its population is held back, left out, or pushed aside. Men and women, girls and boys, must go forward
together.

WOMEN IN POOR COUNTRIES inevitably play a central social role. Because of the obstacles many
face, they also have a strong interest in ensuring that knowledge is shared. This is why poverty-fighting
projects that focus on women are so constructive; each becomes a platform for further gains.Women are
eager to explain what they have learned to their children and neighbors. Archana Kundu, a mother and
member of a CARE-supported women’s self-help group in rural India, put it this way: “For us to have a
better life, the people around us have to have a better life. You just can’t have a good life when people
around you are unhappy.We have a moral responsibility to support the women around us. I enjoy doing it.
Now I know so much, I want to share it.”

AS THE U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE, I was privileged to represent my country in nations around the
world. I had many meetings with high officials in fancy offices, but those are not the meetings that I remember most. The people I will not forget are those I encountered in refugee camps, rehabilitation centers for amputees, safe havens for trafficked women, and clinics for mothers with HIV/AIDS.These are the places where the human spirit undergoes its toughest tests and where people live on less money each day than most of us spend on a can of soda or a cup of coffee. As the representative of the world’s richest and most powerful nation, I was often asked for an assurance that these women and their children would not be forgotten and that their experiences would serve as a catalyst for change.

BACK IN WASHINGTON D.C., I was asked a different question.Why should we care about fighting poverty in the emerging world? I was told that the task was hopeless, that we could not afford to undertake it, and that we had too many other problems about which to worry. I replied that we had learned over and over again that the gravest dangers to world security have deep roots. Desperation, when allowed to fester, egets violence, ethnic strife, terrorism, international crime, and the forced displacement of people. Development, on the other hand, provides the basis for broader markets, new democracies, stability, and peace.

I BELIEVE DEEPLY that if the developed world did more to help the deserving, especially women, we would see children everywhere become citizens and contributors; we would see young people put down roots and establish a niche in the global marketplace; and we would see whole countries benefit from the energy and skills of all their people. The good news, in which democratic societies have always believed, is that human security, prosperity, and freedom are dynamic, not finite; if we plant the seeds and till the soil, they will grow. Here an organization like CARE is essential, for its very purpose is to cultivate, nourish, and sustain our faith in each other and in ourselves.

UNDERLYING ALL THIS is the simple view that every individual—male or female—counts. This is the philosophy of democracy at its best, and it has been the driving force for six decades behind the work of CARE. THIS VIEW IS NOT BASED ON ANY ILLUSIONS; humanitarian workers, in particular, have seen far too much of tragedy and death to indulge in sentimentalism. But we live in a world that has been immeasurably enriched by the survivors, by those who have lifted themselves out of poverty and have overcome hardships to blaze new trails to success.

THESE PAGES INTRODUCE A SMALL SAMPLING of such pioneers and pathfinders.We learn their names and see their faces, and witness the work of their hands and minds.We are encouraged and inspired, and filled with hope.We are also challenged to consider what we can do—each in our own way— to create a world more free, prosperous, and humane than it has ever been.