Editor's note: Dina Habib Powell, global head of corporate engagement at Goldman Sachs, served as U.S. assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs from 2005 to 2007.





Dina Habib Powell says there are encouraging signs the world is ready to invest in empowering women.





NEW YORK (CNN) -- As we mark International Women's Month in March, it is encouraging to see that the movement to recognize the vital role that women play in families, nations and economies has been building for more than a decade and that developments in the past few years have shown that real progress has begun to take hold.





On the heels of International Women's Day, President Obama said Monday, "we will not sow the seeds for a brighter future or reap the benefits of the change we need without the full and active participation of women around the world."





He also recently announced the creation of a new position, ambassador-at-large for global women's Issues, at the State Department.





To fill this critical role, the president nominated Melanne Verveer, a widely respected women's advocate and former top aide to then first lady Hillary Clinton.





Verveer was a founder of Vital Voices Global Partnership, an organization committed to empowering women and recently co-chaired by Secretary Clinton and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.





There has also been very recent progress on Capitol Hill. Last month, the U.S. Senate created a Foreign Relations subcommittee that will focus on the global status of women, led by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California.





The efforts have been a bipartisan priority for our leaders. In 2008, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice successfully led the effort in the U.N. Security Council to officially recognize rape as a weapon of war. And in 2001, Laura Bush used the first presidential radio address ever given by a first lady to focus international attention on the plight of women in Afghanistan and used her influence to protect and empower women around the world.





Critical strides are also being made globally. In Rwanda, a country devastated by genocide, women have become a key part of the nation's rebirth. Under the leadership of President Paul Kagame, more than half of the parliament is made up of women. In Liberia, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf made history when she became the first female president on the African continent.





In the Middle East, Kuwait has emerged as a leader in women's suffrage and political participation. And in the United Arab Emirates, women such as Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, minister of foreign trade, have been trailblazers for progress throughout the region.





This social change is being promoted at the United Nations, where Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently noted that the protection, education and empowerment of women and girls are among the most important ingredients to achieving all other Millennium Development Goals.





Such consensus should not be surprising as study after study has found that investing in the education of women improves lives.





Every extra year of girls' education can reduce infant mortality by 5 to 10 percent. In Africa, children of mothers who receive five years of primary education are 40 percent more likely to live beyond age 5. And multicountry data show educated mothers are about 50 percent more likely to immunize their children than uneducated mothers are.





But one of the most important developments of recent years has been the increasing amount of research that shows investments in women can offer not only social benefits, but also real economic growth. A growing body of evidence highlights the economic advantage of educating and empowering women.





The private sector has seized on this data. There is now broad consensus that investing in women is not only just good social policy, it is "smart economics," as Bob Zoellick, president of the World Bank, says.





Toward that end, the World Bank has convened a Private Sector Leaders Forum with companies committed to these issues, such as Standard Chartered, Cisco, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, Carlson and Nike.





My own firm, Goldman Sachs, published two critical pieces of research, "Womenomics" and "Women Hold Up Half
What is so encouraging here? What does the study show?
signs the world is ready to invest in empowering women. investing in the education of women improves lives.
question: What is so encouraging here?, answer: signs the world is ready to invest in empowering women. | question: What does the study show?, answer: investing in the education of women improves lives.