The World Bank will set aside $2.5bn over the next five years for projects aimed at helping adolescent girls in the developing world go to school, in an attempt to reduce the ranks of the 62m girls around the world without access to education.

世界银行(World Bank)将在未来5年拨款25亿美元投入帮助发展中国家青春期少女上学的项目，以减少目前高达6200万的全球失学女孩数量。

The announcement, made by US first lady Michelle Obama yesterday, is aimed at what development experts argue is one of the most effective ways of boosting long-term global economic development.

这一声明是由美国第一夫人米歇尔•奥巴马(Michelle Obama)昨日作出的，目的是以发展专家们所主张的最有效方式之一促进全球长期经济发展。

One World Bank study found that for every year of education a girl in the developing world received, her life-long income rose 18 per cent — with a vast impact on economic growth.

世行的一项研究发现，在发展中国家，女孩每接受一年教育，她的终身收入就会增长18%，这对经济增长有着巨大影响。

Mrs Obama said in a statement: “The evidence is very clear: when we invest in girls’ education and we embrace women in our workforce that doesn’t just benefit them, it benefits all of us.”

米歇尔在一份声明中表示：“证据非常明显；当我们投资女孩教育并欢迎女性加入到劳动大军时，这不仅造福于她们，也有利于我们所有人。”

Last year she launched an initiative called Let Girls Learn, which is aimed at helping adolescent girls secure an education.

去年，她发起了一项名为“让女孩学习”(Let Girls Learn)的举措，旨在帮助青春期少女接受教育。

The World Bank money is mainly earmarked for projects in Africa and South Asia and includes everything from scholarships to building separate toilets for girls at schools.

上述世行资金将主要投入非洲和南亚的项目，包括各种支出，从奖学金到在学校修建独立的女生厕所。

Tina Tchen, Mrs Obama’s chief of staff and the executive director of the presidential administration’s Council on Women and Girls, said the goal was also to highlight the issue for other governments and to draw new financing commitments from the public and private sector.

米歇尔的幕僚长、白宫妇女和女孩事务委员会(Council on Women and Girls)执行主任陈远美(Tina Tchen)表示，目标还包括向其他国家的政府强调这个问题，并吸引来自公共和私人部门的新的资金承诺。

She said: “What the $2.5bn represents is part of a call to action for many more people to get involved, because to really address this issue it isn’t just the World Bank that is going to solve it. It isn’t just the US government who is going to solve it.”

她表示：“这25亿美元代表着让更多人参与进来的行动倡议的一部分，因为要真正解决这个问题，不能只靠世行来解决这个问题，也不能只靠美国政府来解决这个问题。”

The new funding is far from the World Bank’s first foray into girls’ education. Between 1994 and 2008 it operated a programme in Bangladesh that resulted in girls overtaking boys as the majority population in the country’s schools. In India, a $500m national project has helped enrol 4.3m more girls in secondary schools since 2012 and also helped reach gender parity. The bank has also had similar results with programmes in Nigeria and Yemen.

这笔新的资金远非世行首次涉足女孩教育。1994年至2008年，世行在孟加拉国运作了一个项目，使得该国学校的女生数量超过了男生。在印度，自2012年以来，一个5亿美元的全国计划帮助430万女孩进入初中，也帮助达到性别平等。世行在尼日利亚和也门的项目也取得了类似的结果。

Mrs Obama has made the Let Girls Learn initiative a priority for her remaining time in the White House and vowed to continue the work after her husband leaves office. In an email interview with the Financial Times last year she called girls’ education a “moral issue” and said she would focus on it “for the rest of my life”.

米歇尔已将“让女孩学习”计划列为她在白宫剩余时间的一项优先任务，她还誓言将在奥巴马卸任后继续这项工作。在去年接受英国《金融时报》邮件采访时，她将女孩教育称作一个“道德问题”，并表示她将在“我的余生”关注这个问题。

She told the FT: “Each of these girls has the spark of something extraordinary in them. And I see myself in these girls — I see my daughters in these girls — and I just cannot walk away from them. So for me, this is personal.”

她告诉英国《金融时报》：“每个女孩身上都闪现出一些特别的东西。我在这些女孩身上看到了我自己和我的女儿们，我不能把她们扔下不管。因此对我来说，这已经成了个人层面的一件事情。”