Girl Power?: A History of Girl-Focused Development from Nairobi

An examination of how, when, and why austerity capitalism and strands of feminism became intertwined, and why girl-focused programs have been at the heart of international policymaking.

Girl-focused education programs have long been at the heart of international policymaking--when girls’ access to education is ensured, the thought is, that they are more likely to turn into productive adults who can drive economic growth from below. These ideas combine strands of feminism and austerity capitalism, which, historian Sarah Bellows-Blakely argues, have a specific and understudied origin. In this book, she examines how a doctored study of girls’ education in East and Southern Africa led to the creation of international norms in the UN that would guide policymaking on women’s rights and economic growth, promoting neoliberal feminist policy at the expense of other forms of gender-based justice.

Focusing on the growth of free-market feminism and girl-focused economic development planning through the relationship between UNICEF and the Nairobi-based NGO FEMNET, Bellows-Blakely reveals how their joint efforts set the blueprints for linked movements of economic development and women’s rights that are still ongoing. Through a narrative of the UNICEF-FEMNET lobbying campaign, Bellows-Blakely shows how multiple, contested girl-focused visions of economic programming and gender justice became selectively erased and coalesced into an approach to global policy centered on the free-market construction and strategic deployment of the African ＂girl child.＂

Sarah Bellows-Blakely is a junior research group leader in Gender Studies and Global History at the Freie Universität Berlin.