Mothers: A great return on investment

May 10, 2013 Posted by Irit Tamir

Investing in women is the key to feeding the planet and to economic growth.

As a mother of two, I now know that all my years of schooling did not prepare me nearly as well for working life as being a mother. As all mothers know, mothers are the ultimate project managers and multi-taskers, juggling many tasks at once, carrying out strategies but always being nimble to change course on a dime in the face of a temper tantrum, dirty diaper, or sick child. But for mothers in the developing world there are even bigger and more dire challenges, like where the next meal will come from, how to get medicine for a sick child, or finding potable drinking water. And yet, mothers in the developing world learn to cope with these challenges daily. That’s why so many are now realizing that investing in women is the key to feeding the planet and to economic growth.

According to a recent Gates Foundation report, “When women don’t control resources and income, their households may suffer from malnutrition. Men are less likely than women to reinvest their income in the health of the family.” In a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, women are deemed to be the key to food security indicating that “if women had equal access to agricultural resources and services, food security would be greatly improved and societies would grow richer, and not only in economic terms.”

But it isn’t just NGO’s and UN bodies claiming a good return on investment when providing resources and opportunities to women, Goldman Sachs, the large investment firm also conducted research with the World Bank and concluded that “investments in women—particularly in education and labor force participation—lead to read GDP growth, as women take their earnings and invest them back in their families and communities.” And just last week the billionaire and investment guru, Warren Buffett also expressed his bullish take on women in an essay published in Fortune magazine where he declares his optimism for America’s future lies with American women, untapped resource!

So to all those mothers and multi-taskers, here is a list of 10 (thought there are undoubtedly more) tasks that women in the developing world take on each day:

1. Child rearing

2. Cooking

3. Growing commodity crops for sale

4. Selling at the market

5. Fetching water

6. Chopping and gathering firewood

7. Laundry

8. Maintaining the house

9. Growing crops for food

10. Caring for elders

Author bio

Irit Tamir

Irit Tamir is the Director of Oxfam America's Private Sector Department. In her role, she is focused on working with companies to ensure that their business practices result in positive social and environmental impacts for vulnerable communities throughout the world. She leads a team of advisors that engage the private sector on tax, business and human rights, vaccine equity, legal advocacy, supply chain and labor relations, climate change and gender and racial equity. She oversees the private sector engagement from campaigns and advocacy to collaborations and programs focused on corporate behavior along with a work focused on investors and shareholder advocacy.

Prior to working at Oxfam, Ms. Tamir was the Director of Government Relations at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, where she successfully lobbied for an extensive federal and state legislative agenda. She co-led the effort to pass the Sudan Divestment Bill in Massachusetts, which required the state pension funds to divest from companies doing business with the Government of Sudan in an effort to halt its human rights violations in Darfur. Ms. Tamir is an attorney with a masters in international law and has taught Business and Human Rights as an adjunct at Boston College Law School. She sits on the Board of the Fair Labor Association and co-chaired the Working Group on Business and Human Rights for the New York City Bar Association. A devoted human rights activist, she has spoken publicly about inequality, human rights, climate resilience, and the food system. Ms. Tamir has had years of experience in government relations and is a former prosecutor who supervised civil rights prosecutions and hate crimes.

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Politics of Poverty