BMJ 2024; 385 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q828
Published 09 April 2024
Richard Smith, chair

Winston Churchill famously said that “there is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies”—but perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps the baby might be the eighth child of an exhausted mother who began having children in her teens, or the baby might grow up to become a mother as a teenager and die in childbirth or from an unsafe abortion. Lois Quam, author of the recently published Who Runs the World: Unlocking the Talent and Inventiveness of Women Everywhere, might disagree with Churchill and make a case for investing in women and girls. There is strong evidence that such investment will “bolster good governance, economic growth, community health, and peace and stability.”

We live in an age of “polycrisis”—climate change, environmental destruction, war and impending greater wars, poverty, gross inequality, hunger, and forced migration. A polycrisis, argues Quam, needs a “multifix” and the best one will be to set free the talent, energy, and new ideas of women—half of humanity, who at the moment are largely constrained by lack of education and opportunity, and reproductive burdens.

Continued: https://www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj.q828