The actor Anne Hathaway and the supermodel Christy Turlington turned up at the World Bank yesterday to do their bit for the empowerment of adolescent girls.
I know what you're thinking. Just another ghastly celeb-fest in which a bunch of luvvies emote all over the place about the need to alleviate poverty, burnishing their right-on credentials but with zero impact. Right?
Wrong, actually. Anything that can be done to raise awareness of the need to invest more in girls is worth it, because the returns are so high even though the resistance from patriachal societies is often so strong.
An extra year of secondary education can raise the wages of the women involved by 15-20%. Increasing the income of adolescent girls and young women means they marry later and have babies later, with the result that the children have a better chance of survival and live longer. The story is the same from Brazil, Nepal and Kenya.
As the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, noted: "Underinvestment in adolescent girls is a brake on development".
Two years ago, the bank set up an Adolescent Girls Initiative (AGI), which has been active in seven low-income and post-conflict countries: Afghanistan, Jordan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Liberia, Nepal, Rwanda and South Sudan.
So far the investment has been chicken feed. A total of $20m has been provided by the Nike Foundation, donations by a handful of countries including the UK, and by the World Bank itself.
The bank's contribution has come via the International Development Association, a fund which channels soft loans to the world's 79 poorest nations, but has to be replenished with a fresh injection of cash from rich countries every three years.
As it happens, the bank is currently passing the hat round for new IDA money - and knows that donor countries are counting every penny. IDA 15 raised just over $40bn and Zoellick is keen to match that in IDA 16. Hence the razzmatazz at yesterday's event.
A bog standard World Bank seminar on a plan to extend the AGI to Haiti and Yemen would have been a small gathering of the already deeply committed. Getting Hathaway and Turlington along meant it was standing room only and Zoellick was able to get his message across: if he gets the IDA cash he is looking for, he can train two million more teachers, provide health services to 30 million more people and water services to 80 million more people, and build or repair 80,000 km of roads.
