Women and Girls: Employment Skills in the Developing World

Lord Loomba Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Loomba]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the report published by Oxfam on wealth disparity, what steps they are taking to ensure that women and girls in the developing world are equipped with the right employment skills.

[Lord Loomba (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for speaking in this debate and for the wealth of knowledge and ideas that I am sure will be forthcoming on what is a serious issue that we face in these unpredictable times.

As I am sure your Lordships are all aware, the Oxfam report highlights a truth that the world is becoming more, not less, unequal. For this to happen after one of the worst economic crashes the world has ever seen makes its theme that the wealthy few are keeping it all for themselves all the more unpalatable. While we face ever more political uncertainty, wealth distribution has not been addressed properly by successive Governments, both here and abroad. This point has been used to good effect by the new President of the United States, Donald Trump, who has sworn to give back power and wealth to the people.

It is welcome that poverty has been vastly reduced since the introduction of the millennium development goals. The sustainable development goals, building on the MDGs, aim to reduce poverty even further. However, the idea of relying on the concept of the “trickle-down effect” to facilitate some of the wealth trickling down from on high to those at the bottom does not work; it clearly goes against the aims of the goals if wealth is polarised in the bank accounts of the few. If wealthier nations are truly to embrace change and allow even more people to share in the wealth that is generated, more will need to be done to address these imbalances.

Although the obvious answer lies in how Governments deal with wealth, taxation and channelling help to those most in need, there is also a great need to ensure that the people who need the most help have the correct skills to take up employment opportunities so that they too can share in a fairer distribution of wealth. This point is more acute when the situation of women and girls is addressed. It is a well-known fact that it is women and girls who suffer most from poverty and from a lack of support to empower them and provide the ability for them to help themselves.

The DfID bilateral development review, published last December, emphasises what education is being provided to young people, and this is to be welcomed. DfID’s key objective is to end extreme poverty and spread prosperity—an objective which is particularly linked with having the correct skills to access employment opportunities. DfID aims to address,

“the chronic need for jobs and economic livelihoods for young people”.

But what of the many adults who have not been able to access any education and are now illiterate and lack the skills to be employed? And what about the general acknowledgment that it is women and girls who suffer most when it comes to a lack of educational opportunities that lead to employment? Women and girls in developing countries are more likely to be held back from education for financial, family or cultural reasons. Many more women and girls grow up without any education at all in the developing world, and it is they who need our help and assistance the most.

A key message of the review in relation to the sustainable development goals is:

“We will invest in people, leaving no one behind”.


Facilitating schooling for the many displaced refugees in conflict states is a very worthwhile project that helps the children who are suffering now through conflict. But how are we to ensure that “no one is left behind” if we do not provide the best opportunities for the many people, particularly women and girls, who have already grown up without an education and face a lifetime of illiteracy?

Here, I declare an interest as chairman and founder of the Loomba Foundation, which was set up to help impoverished widows and their children worldwide. It is now acknowledged that widows face double discrimination when trying to rebuild their lives after the death of their husband. In the foundation, we have a specific scheme to tackle head on the issue of widows who are held back by adult illiteracy, with help given to some of the poorest widows in India. We are planning to work with the Rotary Club to set up facilities in all 30 states in India to help 30,000 widows—1,000 in each state. Providing this tuition is a way forward to opening the door to employment and ensuring that opportunities are not lost through the sheer inability to read and write.

A further question to consider in this increasingly globalised world is: do we create opportunities for women and girls to access tuition in the English language so that they are truly well equipped to tackle the problems and situations that they face in becoming self-sufficient? I was recently asked to provide my perception of an empowered woman, to which I replied, “An empowered woman is one who can make her own way in the world unhindered by prejudice, abuse and cruelty, and who is considered of equal worth by her peers and her community”. To that, we can surely add: an empowered woman is also free from the tyranny of illiteracy and able to read and write to an acceptable standard.