20080306 GROWTH Act

Urge Congress to Pass the GROWTH Act

Dear Senators/Representative:

As an Episcopalian and constituent deeply committed to fighting deadly poverty around the world, I urge you to support groundbreaking legislation that would fight global poverty by empowering women in the developing world.

Seventy percent of the more-than-one billion people living in extreme poverty around the world are women. Women do two thirds of the world's work and yet earn just five percent of the world's pay. Investing in women is the surest way to end global poverty and meet the Millennium Development Goals. In most poor countries, women produce the majority of the food supply and are more likely to spend their incomes on food, education, and health care for their children. Nevertheless, they face unequal barriers: longer working hours in the lowest-paid sectors, less stable income, and less workforce training than men.

The Global Resources and Opportunities for Women to Thrive (GROWTH) Act (H.R.2965/S.2069) is a bipartisan bill that would address these inequities and put our nation's foreign policy on the right track toward ending global poverty by promoting women's livelihoods. It would reshape U.S. development aid and trade policy in four ways. It would: (1) Provide funds to help women start and grow their own business; (2) Provide training and education to women to improve their wages and working conditions; (3) Ensure that U.S. trade policy is beneficial to women and families living in poverty; and (4) Enhance women's land and property rights by prompting U.S. development agencies to work with women and organizations in the developing world addressing these disparities.

Global poverty kills 30,000 of God's children every day. Over the past five years, our nation has made enormous strides in addressing this great tragedy, investing in poverty-focused foreign aid, debt cancellation for poor countries, and groundbreaking programs to fight AIDS and malaria around the world. The GROWTH Act complements these efforts by strengthening the abilities of women in the workforce in developing countries to provide meaningfully for the livelihoods of their families.

As Saturday is International Women's Day I urge you and your colleagues to use this occasion to commit to passing the GROWTH Act in 2008. If you have not yet signed on as a cosponsor, I urge you to be in touch with Rep. Lowey or Rep. Ros-Letinen/Sen.Durbin or Sen. Hutchison and add your name.

Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,