The Let Girls Learn initiative will seek to reduce economic and cultural barriers — such as gender-based violence or living far from school — that keep millions of adolescent girls from getting an education. As part of the initiative, the State Department will work in several countries—including Malawi and Tanzania—to empower adolescent girls and ensure they’re able to attend school.

For many Muslim women, the decision to don the hijab […] is born of private self-reflection [...] But [Yusof's] choice soon became something else, as well: a lucrative source of attention for herself and her multimillion-dollar online-retail startup, FashionValet […] In Malaysia women are free—even encouraged—to inject glamor and prestige into the hijab, and to make money from it.

Since March, Obama has travelled to countries including Britain, Japan, Cambodia and Qatar to promote Let Girls Learn, an initiative to help some of the more than 30 million adolescent girls who lack access to education. Embracing a network of 7,000 Peace Corps volunteers, it will seek community-led solutions to lower the barriers that prevent girls from getting secondary schooling.

When an Indian man invented a simple machine for poor rural women to make cheap sanitary pads, the idea was to provide jobs for some, and hygiene for millions - often for the first time. The story gave one British woman an idea that quickly became her mission in life.

Lieutenant Ouma Laouali, 28, on the 21st of October became the first female pilot in Niger. She was one of the Nigerien Airforce members trained by the United States as part of a program to help fight the Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram. Just as women in politics and business are celebrated, Lieutenant Ouma is celebrated for joining the league of amazing first female pilots in Africa. 

Image Nation Abu Dhabi has launched a schools outreach program to coincide with the upcoming release of the film He Named Me Malala. The program aims to raise awareness in the UAE about the global education crisis, inspiring students to value their own education and become advocates for education around the world.

[Sport] is a powerful tool for progress and for development," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2011. In post-genocide Rwanda, Felicite Rwemalika's work is an embodiment of this idea. She has forged opportunities which have brought increased wealth and skills to women and their families - all by getting women to play football.

Kathleen McGinn, a professor of negotiation at Harvard Business School, wondered: Could Zambian schoolgirls stay in school if they received training in negotiation — a version of the same training given to Harvard MBAs, undergrads and executives? […] With the help of the Zambian Ministry of Education and the New Haven-based Innovations for Poverty Action, a research nonprofit, they're hoping to find out.