Femi Oke: Women as a force for change.

While significant progress has been made over the last 15 years to reduce extreme poverty, millions of people around the world still exist on less than $1.25 a day.
At a time when the world is looking at how to reduce extreme poverty, the spotlight has been turned to women: wherever they have had the opportunity to be actively involved in their local communities they bring huge benefits to the people around them.
Development experts for years have claimed that projects aimed at women and girls bring benefits not just to the women themselves, but to the broader society. But how does this actually work?
Al Jazeera's Femi Oke talks about the idea behind Women Make Change and explains why investing in women is smart economics.

"If you are looking at the developing world, if you are looking at empowering women, there's absolute research that shows that if you give women the opportunity to really get involved in their local communities, they have a big impact, because they care about their kids going to school, they care about their family making money, their community making money - and there's this huge impact beyond this one individual woman, or those women, that spreads around - and that really changes communities, that really changes how the world develops, so women are a key part of sustainable development."