There is no more important work on earth than facilitating the health, education and well-being of women. Women make up 50% of the population but are responsible for the bearing, delivering and raising 100% of the population.

Healthy and educated women are more likely to raise healthy and educated children.

But like every thing else, health care and education cost money. And, many women in developing countries and economies in transitions cannot afford basic health care or primary education; dooming their girls to a life of poverty, disease, exploitation and early death.

Most of what is being done to assist these women isn’t enough and it isn’t sustainable.

A recent report commissioned by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs summarized international development finance as follows:

“At the beginning of the 21st century, more than five decades after international development began to emerge as a field in its own right, the international development financing ‘system’ is ... not up to the task of mobilizing finance in the amounts and ways required to assist a growing diversity of developing countries in their efforts to reduce poverty and improve living standards ...[and] inadequate to respond to the changing demands emerging from the much more complex realities of global interdependence.”

You might think that the private sector would be playing more of a role in the economic empowerment of women. Afterall, most consumer packaged goods companies depend on women consumers for their success. And, for many companies whose products have saturated established markets, growth potential lies with the two billion women in emerging markets.

Face to Face International believes that public and private sector players can do more – and be more effective at what they do – by working together. Much of our work today focuses on building population and development assistance-oriented public/private consensus and collaboration.