When the Berlin Wall fell and suddenly all those countries had burgeoning democracies, women were still being left out. The big turning point, about ten years ago, was moving from a notion of empowering women to actually looking at where you can make the most difference, and it's in a girl's life.

Global is a unifying bond for people. Once they get outside their own heads and their own communities and see themselves in a broader framework, it really changes their sense of what they can get done. It all adds up for us.

When the Berlin Wall fell and suddenly all those countries had burgeoning democracies, women were still being left out. The big turning point, about ten years ago, was moving from a notion of empowering women to actually looking at where you can make the most difference, and it's in a girl's life.

Gender data is important. If girls don’t have a birth certificate, how do we know how many are marrying as children?

If you can get to a girl and make a difference in her life, you're actually going to have a greater impact on a woman's life. If you don't get to her as a girl, you may not be able ever to help her as a woman.

It's harder to be a poor person than anything else.

Being poor is not like being a victim. Being poor means that you don't have one resource.