130 million girls are out of school, but more are at risk of being excluded from education because of the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and conflict. “If you want faster growth, educate girls, empower women,” said the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a conversation with Nobel Prize-winning women’s rights activist Malala Yousufzai.

“We have calculated that if women had the same access to the labour market as men, GDP would be 5 percent higher in the United States, 9 percent higher in Japan, 27 percent higher in India, 34 percent higher in Egypt. So if we want prosperity, we need to ensure that women can contribute to their communities, to their societies,” said IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.