Today, CFR published a new report, Ending Child Marriage: How Elevating the Status of Girls Advances U.S. Foreign Policy Objectives. The report looks at the scope and causes of this practice, what it means for U.S. foreign policy, and ways the U.S. might tackle child marriage through policy.

Child marriage is a major problem. As the report, written by CFR Fellow Rachel Vogelstein, notes, “the United Nations estimates that in 2011 one in three women aged twenty to twenty-four—almost seventy million—had married before the age of eighteen.” Moreover, each year, almost five million girls who are younger than fifteen are married. And it’s not only absolute numbers: in some countries, the incidence of child marriage is incredibly high. While an estimated 40 percent of the world’s child brides live in India, Niger is the worst offender in terms of incidence of child marriage–nearly three-quarters of women are married by the time they reach eighteen. (India also has a very high child marriage rate, with 47.4 percent of girls married before they turn eighteen). Among other things, child marriage often means that girls’ educational opportunities (and economic prospects) vanish, and that they experience the serious health risks associated with early childbearing, including a much higher danger of maternal mortality.

While there are no easy answers, the report highlights some reasons for optimism, referencing research that suggests that Turkey’s decision to raise the age of mandatory schooling “to age fourteen reduced the proportion of girls married at age sixteen by 45 percent.” Meanwhile, a pilot program in Ethiopia experienced great results by giving girls school supplies and lessening economic burdens on families, one reason parents marry off girls. Namely, the program gave a goat to families who said they would continue their daughters’ educations and not marry them off for two years. The program reduced the likelihood of marriage for young girls in the group by 90 percent.

For more on the problem of child marriage and policy options, you can read the full report as well as Rachel Vogelstein’s “Three Things to Know About Child Marriage” on the Development Channel. As she argues, “Child marriage is undoubtedly a violation of human rights: it truncates girls’ education, robs them of their economic potential, endangers their health, and exposes them to sexual violence and abuse. But child marriage also matters because it undermines U.S. interests in development, prosperity, and stability.”

In light of the ongoing controversy over Benghazi, the New York Times’ Room for Debate asked contributors to weigh in on Hillary Clinton’s record as secretary of state.

Clinton drew significant praise from some contributors. Philip Seib of the Center on Public Diplomacy said, “More than any previous secretary of state, Clinton ‘got it’ in terms of understanding the importance of public diplomacy as a foreign policy tool.” Professor Minxin Pei at the Claremont McKenna College lauded Clinton’s work in Asia, concluding that “despite the growing underlying antagonism in U.S.-China relations, the ties between the U.S. and China are now on a more solid and realistic footing.”

Other views were more mixed. Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center wrote about Clinton’s generally rocky relationship with Russia’s leaders. When it comes to Israel-Palestine issues, UC-Davis professor Zeev Maoz reasoned, “The gap between the professed goals of the administration and the outcomes of its policies is substantial. But the Obama/Clinton team faced an uphill battle.”

Clinton also attracted sharp criticism. Paul J. Sanders of the Center for the National Interest portrayed Clinton as unstrategic, criticizing her record on Syria and Libya in particular. Meyrav Wurmser of the Hudson Institute claimed that the Obama administration has a “misconceived vision of a new Middle East and the sources of rage against us.” Danielle Pletka for the American Enterprise Institute argued, among other things, that “Women and religious minorities now have fewer freedoms across the Middle East and North Africa.” This view misses the complex impact of the Arab uprisings on women–yes, conservative forces have come to the fore, but women have also achieved new levels of engagement and mobilization to fight for their rights in the new systems. It also misses Clinton’s extensive efforts to advocate for women abroad. As I wrote in my own Room for Debate response:

When Clinton first made an international name for herself on this issue, at the UN’s 1995 Beijing Conference on Women–where she memorably asserted that “women’s rights are human rights”–she framed the challenge in moral terms. But as secretary of state, she persistently connected the dots between women’s rights and major foreign policy concerns such as global economic development, food security, extremism and political stability.

You can read the Room for Debate responses here.

Last summer, I wrote about two young women from Saudi Arabia, Wojdan Shaherkani and Sarah Attar, who were the first Saudi women ever to compete in the Olympics. They had to endure criticism from conservatives at home and lots of discussion about what they would wear to compete, but they served as a powerful symbol of a better future for Saudi women’s athletic participation.

Now, young women in Saudi Arabian private schools have the chance to take part in an activity open to most students all over the world—sports. Currently, women’s sports in Saudi Arabia take place unofficially in private schools or in private “health clubs” (rather than women’s gyms, which are not given licenses). The recent decision to permit sports only applies to private schools, so girls in public schools will be left out, at least initially. However, measures to allow girls’ sports in public schools seem to be in the works, including as of this March; as early as 2011, Saudi Arabia actually said it would establish physical education classes for female students in public (government) schools, although nothing appears to have happened.

Last month, Saudi Arabia’s religious police said that women could ride bikes and motorbikes—but under certain caveats including only riding bicycles for recreation (as opposed to transportation) in “recreational areas.” Reactions to this have been mixed. “[Women] will also have to be dressed in full Islamic body coverings, and–in a darkly comic stipulation that evokes images of tandems–they will have to be accompanied by a male relative,” writes journalist Nabila Ramdani in The Guardian.

The issue of women driving remains unresolved. In April, Prince AlWaleed bin Talal came out in support of women behind the wheel, arguing that it was a smart economic move that would free the country from its dependence on foreign drivers. Practical arguments like these may find some support among those who are ambivalent about giving women more freedom. Even the decision about permitting girls’ sports gives a nod to the question of foreign employment, as Saudi women will be first in line for employment as physical education teachers. The health aspect of the recent sports decision is another obvious practical argument to make, and was one that also came up during Saudi Arabia’s shutting down of women’s gyms a few years ago, when women started an ironically titled campaign, “Let Her Get Fat.” (In March, it was reported that women’s gyms/sports clubs would receive licenses, but an official later corrected this report, saying that this was only in discussion).

History shows the difference that government support for sports can make. In the U.S., the passage of Title IX  expanded opportunities for women’s sports and had a swift impact: in 1972, one in twenty-seven high school women in the U.S. played sports, but by 1978, when schools had to be compliant with the law, one in four high school women did. Saudi Arabia is starting with a much lower baseline of participation than the United States in a social environment that is far more hostile to women’s sports. However, the recent decision on sports in Saudi Arabia is a step in the right direction that might eventually inspire athletic leadership among young women who have yet to even play sports.

While the Arab revolutions were underpinned by a demand for greater political freedom, economic frustrations–particularly among the region’s large youth population–were also a factor. Millions of young people with university degrees languish for years unemployed, with no hope of getting a job that meets their expectations. Millions more are not completing sufficient years of school to master basic literacy and numeracy skills. As the 2002 Arab Human Development Report noted, adult literacy in the Arab world is shamefully low–and lower than the average in developing countries.

However, countries are making efforts to tackle their literacy challenges. The above graph shows that every country has made concrete progress in tackling illiteracy. Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Bahrain all boast youth literacy rates above 96 percent, but Yemen, Egypt, and in particular, Morocco, still have a long way to go.

The solution to illiteracy is not just government spending: it is a matter of implementing effective programs and putting these programs into action for every child. Egypt’s Early Grade Reading Program is one example of the sort of educational innovation that needs to happen.

Beating illiteracy is just the first step in equipping citizens for a productive economic life. Mohamed Bouazizi, the desperate Tunisian street vendor whose self-immolation sparked the region’s uprisings, was not illiterate–he had the equivalent of a high school degree. Inculcating students with critical thinking and soft skills is also a prerequisite. But the burden of some 60 million illiterate adults in the Arab world, most of whom are women, is a heavy weight indeed and one that is only beginning to ease with the current generation.

With its recently released Water and Development Strategy, USAID highlights some practical and potentially powerful initiatives both to improve health by expanding access to clean water and sanitation and to improve food security through better water management in agriculture. With respect to food security, the report singles out two areas for action:

1) Make rainfed agriculture work better. As the report argues, “The greatest and most cost­ effective potential for crop yield increases are in rainfed areas. Half of the increase in the projected demand for water by 2025 could be met by increasing the efficiency of irrigation in these areas.” The report also notes that “in many instances, the major obstacle to rainfed agriculture is not the absolute volume of rainfall; it is management of that rainfall.” The report seems optimistic about the solutions available to bolster rainfed agriculture. For example, it points to a basic agricultural technique (ridge tillage) that allowed rainfed farmers in Mali to increase the yields of cereals “by 30 to 50 percent.”

2) Make irrigation more effective. The report announces that “USAID will focus on increasing irrigated agriculture in select countries, including expanding irrigation in a responsible, sustainable, and climate-resistant way. The most cost-effective investment for USAID in irrigated systems will be in improving the efficiency of existing irrigation systems and building the capacity to manage those systems like a business, whether through community based organizations or private investments.” The report points to the reality that without good management, “irrigation infrastructure has often fallen into disuse at the end of a project because benefits were too small and/or users were unable to cover recurring costs.”

According to USAID, rainfed agriculture is responsible for over 60 percent of food produced globally. Thus, the focus on improving the productivity of rainfed agriculture is sensible–indeed, working to improve preexisting systems and business processes should be seen more in international development efforts. Kickstart, a nonprofit organization that I’ve written about previously, takes this practical approach. It is currently selling affordable, portable pumps to smallholder farmers in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa so that they too can experience the benefits of irrigation on a continent where only about 6 percent of the cultivated land is irrigated (versus 37 percent in Asia, for instance). Kickstart estimates that since 1991, its affordable pumps have alleviated poverty for over 700,000 people.

As the global population continues to climb toward 10 billion, and more people enjoy the higher caloric intake of middle class life, finding sustainable ways to improve agricultural productivity is increasingly important. As the USAID strategy makes clear, more careful water management will be a critical part of the solution.

Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words. Above, I show which countries have the largest sovereign wealth funds, and below, I show how these countries’ funds rank on a per capita basis. Data about the funds comes from the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Rankings, and I calculated per capita values primarily by using World Bank population data. It’s interesting to note that:

• Oil rules. These sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are more or less oil-based except for a few Asian tigers and Australia. And out of the countries with the fifteen largest funds–as measured by the combined assets of all the funds whose amounts are listed–the Middle East and North Africa occupy six spots.
• That being said, the biggest SWFs by either absolute or per capita measures are not located in the MENA region. The estimated combined total of China’s SWFs is more than $1.2 trillion, almost 50 percent larger than the UAE countries’ combined $817 billion in listed SWF assets. However, on a per capita basis, China’s combined SWFs are in last place at $904 for every citizen; Norway leads with over $144,000 in assets for every citizen.
• The United States makes an appearance as a result of Alaska’s substantial SWF. The funds associated with the U.S. are the Alaska Permanent Fund (“Oil”, established 1976), the Texas Permanent School Fund (“Oil & Other,” established 1854), the New Mexico State Investment Council (“Non-Commodity,” established 1958), the Permanent Wyoming Mineral Trust Fund (“Minerals,” established 1974), the Alabama Trust Fund (“Oil & Gas,” established 1985), and the North Dakota Legacy Fund (“Oil & Gas,” established 2011). Alaska has approximately the same per capita SWF value as Qatar.

This graph shows the SWF values from the graph above on a per capita basis. These per capita values were calculated by dividing the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Rankings (last updated March 2013) by World Bank 2011 population figures and 2011 U.S. Census Bureau Data (via Google Public Data, for Alaska). Asterisks indicate where the assets of a country’s multiple SWFs have been added together. The Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute notes that one of the Russian funds “includes the oil stabilization fund of Russia” and that the figure for China’s largest fund “is a best guess estimation.”

American food aid to countries in need is one of those broken policies that seem like such a no-brainer to fix. Yet despite well-intentioned efforts to do so, vested interests insist on maintaining the status quo, with ill effects. The Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration before it, is again trying to bring some sense to food aid, but prospects for reform are low.

At the time of its founding during the Cold War, the Food for Peace program was designed to put American agricultural surpluses to use while contributing to positive perceptions of the U.S. overseas. Now, as USAID administrator Rajiv Shah points out, what used to be a win-win program to help the U.S. and feed the hungry is no longer so. “As more efficient tools surfaced and best practices evolved, we’ve learned that the current approach to food aid can become—at times—an impediment to its very own mission.” Indeed.

Currently, most food aid that the U.S. gives to other countries must be purchased from the U.S. and three-quarters of it must be transported on private American ships. This results in food that is more costly than necessary and takes longer to reach critical destinations. Through a practice called monetization, the US government also gives food to nonprofits to sell locally to fund their activities, a practice that not only distorts local economies, but also results in a loss of about 25 cents on the dollar.

The FY 2014 budget tries to chip away at this nonsense by allowing 45 percent of the food aid budget be used more flexibly. For example, agencies could distribute cash or vouchers to buy locally-produced food instead of being forced to buy U.S. farm commodities. Moreover, monetization would end entirely, and the resulting savings would be put into a fund for the kinds of programs previously paid for by monetization. The administration estimates that the upshot of all these changes is some four million more people could receive food aid—for basically the same cost—and that responses would be more rapid. A 2010 interview with former USAID administrator Andrew Natsios serves as a sobering reminder of what’s at stake. “I’ve seen children starve to death when there was a surplus of food in their local markets, but there was no one to buy the food because we didn’t have the money to do that, so people died.”

Important relief organizations, including CARE, ONE, and Oxfam America praised these changes in a statement as a “solid step in the right direction,” and as “reflect[ing] a strong commitment to helping the hungry in times of crisis as well as securing long-term food security for the world’s most vulnerable.”

Not surprisingly, the proposed changes to food aid have made some special interests very unhappy, and numerous senators are already lobbying the administration on their behalf. Those vested interests include food producers, shipping interests, and many NGOs who depend heavily on monetization of food aid to fund their activities. During the George W. Bush administration, this troika sank the last big effort to reform food aid when Andrew Natsios pushed to let USAID spend up to 25 percent of its food budget locally in countries in need. At the time, the relief organization CARE took the courageous step of announcing that it would gradually eliminate its dependence on monetization by 2009, even though monetization provided the organization with $46 million. Too few other big NGOs have followed suit.

This time around, there doesn’t appear to be any groundswell on Capitol Hill for changing food aid, despite the obvious drawbacks and inefficiencies of the current system–particularly around monetization, which cost the program nearly $220 million in just three years, according to a 2011 report from the Government Accountability Office. Reform of food aid will undoubtedly continue to be an uphill battle, but one worth fighting.

Women in the Middle East stand to play a vital role in the region’s economic and political future, if given the opportunity. This week at the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Bank’s senior adviser to the chief economist for the Middle East and North Africa, Nadereh Chamlou, spoke about women’s economic empowerment in the Arab world. Today, my colleague Reza Aslan–author of books including No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam and adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations—writes about Chamlou’s remarks and the challenges to women’s participation in the workforce.

A great debate has been raging, both inside the Council on Foreign Relations and within the larger foreign policy community, over whether the so-called Arab Spring has been good or bad for the women of the region. Some argue that the rise of Islamist governments in places like Egypt and Tunisia has led to a stark reversal of women’s rights. Others believe that the vibrant social and political activism that has been born from these revolutions will pave the way for a more robust female presence in society and government than that which existed under authoritarian rule.

Into this debate stepped Nadereh Chamlou, senior adviser to the chief economist for the Middle East and North Africa at the World Bank. Ms. Chamlou’s roundtable at the Council on Monday, April 8 served as an important reminder that the struggle for women’s empowerment in the Arab world may depend less on who runs the government than it does on their ability to progress in the economic sphere.

Chamlou noted that true and lasting democratic change relies in large part on the creation of a strong middle class, one that obviously includes the full and equal economic participation of women. Unfortunately, not only are women’s labor force participation rates in Arab countries among the lowest in the world, female unemployment rates are far above the region’s averages. That makes the creation of a strong middle class much more difficult to sustain, which in turn makes a secure democracy–one that ensures the rights of women–less likely to develop.

The irony is that Arab women are both supremely qualified and perfectly positioned to play a productive role in the region’s labor force. With the exception of Yemen and Morocco, female literacy rates in the Arab world are roughly equal to those of men, though women make up a larger talent pool than their male counterparts. While the number of male and female college graduates is fairly equal (5.1 million women as opposed to 5 million men), Arab women outperform men even in the hard sciences. Indeed, the share of women graduates in the sciences is higher in the Middle East than it is in Western Europe. So then, if women in the Arab world are acquiring the skills in the fields of technology, engineering, and sciences necessary to compete with men in these new and emerging markets, why do they not have the same opportunity to succeed in the labor force?

It seems the answer may have as much to do with perception as it does with reality. Chamlou surveyed five thousand firms in Europe that regularly offshore white-collar jobs to the Middle East. In general, these companies said they would prefer to hire women over men because they viewed women as better employees, mainly because they excel in the so-called “soft skills”: that is, they are more dedicated, more trustworthy, more reliant, etc. However, when asked to rate what they saw as the greatest impediment to hiring Arab women, by a wide margin these companies cited “sharia” as the main reason. Of course, by sharia, they did not mean the vagaries of Islamic jurisprudence, which varies widely from country to country and about which the heads of European multinationals are very likely ignorant. They simply meant their own perception of the cultural limitations that exist in the Arab world when it comes to the rights and privileges of women. In other words, these companies were wary of hiring of Arab women, despite the fact that they prefer female employees, because they assumed that the restrictions placed upon them by their societies would keep them from succeeding at their jobs.

The fact that this impression of a region dominated by sharia happens to be incomplete if not downright false is irrelevant. As most Middle East analysts (myself included) concede, this is a region of the world where perception often trumps reality. The bottom line is that simply the impression that women are being trampled by the boot of sharia in places like Egypt and Tunisia–whether accurate or not–has caused the entire region to lose its competitive advantage in the global market because it has denied women an equal place in the work force.

The gulf monarchs of the Emirates are now taking steps to alter this widespread perception. Chamlou highlighted the efforts of Dubai’s Sheikh Muhammad, who recently enacted a plan to force all public boards in the country to be composed 50 percent of women. While that is certainly a huge step toward greater economic progress for Emirati women, it is important to note that such decisions are obviously easier to make in a dictatorship than in a democracy. Nevertheless, the emerging democracies of the Arab world could learn a lesson from the Emirates about the value of changing the impression companies have of their female labor force. Because the less economic opportunities women in the Arab world have, the less hope there will be for the creation of a stable, viable, and democratic future.

The announcement last week by the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa to launch a new international development bank has raised many questions. At their annual summit, hosted in Durban, South Africa, the leaders of these dynamic economies gushed that this was the beginning of increased cooperation and “a structural shift in the global economy.” In a piece published today on ForeignPolicy.com, I ask ten questions about the structure and purpose of a potential BRICS development bank and its implications for international development and the global economy. I write:

Do the BRICS have enough in common to sustain a shared institution?

Maybe. Maybe not. Some lack of consensus is undoubtedly behind the hedging. The BRICS encompass very different political systems — from thriving democracy in Brazil to entrenched oligarchy in Russia — and their economies are little integrated, inherently competitive, and are different in size by orders of magnitude. In 2011, China’s GDP was over $7.3 trillion, about eighteen times larger than South Africa’s economy, the smallest of the BRICS, and three times larger than Brazil’s economy, the second biggest of the BRICS. It’s also unclear to what extent the BRICS share a vision with respect to economic development, other than not being “the West.” Still, while such differences create challenges, success is not impossible.  Remember, the economy of the United States dwarfed those of its allies when it created the Bretton Woods institutions in the postwar years. And there was no lack of disagreement about the postwar order among the European powers and Washington, but somehow the Bretton Woods system survived.

You can read the full piece here.

Pervez Musharraf, former general and president of Pakistan, returned to Karachi yesterday after years in exile to contest the country’s upcoming national election expected later this spring. As the election season heats up, many Pakistanis are expressing concern that the anticipated vote will be derailed for one reason or another. Imran Riffat, a former financial industry professional and longtime Pakistan observer, provides a guest post today arguing that Pakistan’s future would be best served by pushing forward with the democratic process, despite its limitations.

For the first time in Pakistan’s history, a civilian government recently completed its term and is expected to pass the baton to new representatives elected through a democratic process. But as new elections, expected in May, approach, many Pakistanis are skeptical that the military will allow the process to be completed in a fair and transparent manner.

Under Pakistan’s constitution, a caretaker prime minister leads an interim government until elections occur. Retired justice Mir Hazar Khan Khoso was sworn in to take up this function today. There is, however, wide speculation that the powers that be will not move toward elections but will instead prolong the interim government’s tenure indefinitely, using as justification the total breakdown of law and order in Pakistan.

Over the past several years, the United States has given Pakistan billions of dollars in aid, ostensibly to support the NATO effort in Afghanistan. But this did not benefit the common citizen. Instead the money was siphoned off to promote the institutional and personal interests of the military and its leaders. Today the generals have an incentive to preserve their fiscal autonomy and therefore to stave off a full civilian-led democracy.

Although the outgoing democratically elected government did not fully succeed in building a strong civil society or setting a high standard of good governance, military rule–whether direct or by proxy–would be no solution. Dan Markey recently expressed this view in a thoughtful CFR Policy Innovation Memorandum.  

If the military succeeds in diverting the democratic process it would have grave implications for the over 180 million people of Pakistan as well as the country’s standing in the world. The economy is already in a perilous state, and continued increases in the military budget would further starve critical sectors like health, education, and infrastructure to provide electricity to the people.

Military dominance would also make it harder to address the mayhem caused by ever-growing sectarian and ethnic violence in Pakistan. The high command’s hawkishness, supported by its smug and misplaced posturing on its possession of a nuclear deterrent, is a threat not only to building democracy in the country but also to world peace. The implications of this are well addressed in Bruce Riedel’s recent book Avoiding Armageddon: America, India, and Pakistan to the Brink and Back.

Pakistan’s future as a stable and prosperous state cannot be achieved without an uninterrupted commitment to nurturing democracy. Neither military rule nor policy status quo is a viable option. At this critical juncture in the country’s history its leadership–which includes its overbearing military as well as its overactive judiciary–must take two immediate steps to enable Pakistan to step back from the precipice.

First and foremost, Pakistan must declare full-scale war on the groups destabilizing the country by carrying out depraved acts of terrorism within and beyond its borders. These actors are the very monsters created by the state’s security agencies and military. It is now imperative to pull the plug on these illicit partnerships.

Second, leaders must realize that Pakistan’s interests are now better served by having a constructive relationship with India, one based on respect for each other’s sovereignty and deepening economic ties. The widening trust deficit between the two neighbors must be stemmed and reversed. Pakistan’s failure, under pressure from its military, to fulfill its promise of extending Most Favored Nation status to India highlights a disturbing chasm between word and deed.

This two-pronged approach, though not a panacea for Pakistan’s total meltdown, is self-reinforcing. If Pakistan could eliminate the stigma of its fingerprints on abhorrent attacks inside India, the two countries could make progress toward more disciplined management of the Line of Control in disputed Kashmir. This, in turn, could create a more conducive atmosphere for progress towards an amicable agreement on the water-sharing disputes that remain unresolved after almost six decades. An improved understanding with India would also allow Pakistan’s military to scale back its presence on the eastern front and concentrate on fighting terrorism within its own boundaries. This would give a sense of security to Pakistan’s populace.

To save and build a stable and democratic Pakistan, its military, judiciary, and political leadership should immediately stop pursuing their own narrow agendas and work to build consensus on, and allow action towards, a roadmap that serves the broader interests of Pakistan and its people. Pakistan should also consider seeking the help of its close and trusted friends, countries like China and Turkey, to rebuild dialogue with India.

Finally, it is important for India to understand that it, too, would stand to gain enormously from a steady, peaceful, and democratic Pakistan. It behooves its leadership to do its part in creating a constructive and helpful atmosphere.