Invest in girls and women and you can change the world.

That was the message driven home at the kick-off of the first-ever G(irls) 20 Summit at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto Wednesday, an event that countered some of the cynicism surrounding the upcoming meeting of G20 leaders next week.

Twenty-one young women representing the G20 nations and the African Union will be meeting for 10 days to discuss ways to help solve some of the greatest problems facing girls and women around the world.

Their conclusions will be forwarded to the leaders attending the G20 summit June 26-27. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Argentine President Cristina Kirchner are the only female heads of state attending the international gathering in Toronto next week.

 “What has brought us here today is a shared belief in the possible,” said Belinda Stronach, whose foundation created the G(irls) 20 event, “the confidence that we can make a positive difference in the lives of girls and women in both the developed and developing world and if we do this, we will be able to tackle some of the massive challenges, including poverty, illiteracy and death because of lack of adequate health care.”

Governor General Michaelle Jean and Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered words of encouragement to the young delegates in video messages.

The opening of the summit dealt with many issues including violence against women, child brides, the lack of investment in women and girls and the lack of education and economic opportunities in the developing world.

Leaders of non-governmental organizations that fight to improve the lives of young women in developing nations believe adolescent girls are an untapped resource and that opening a door of opportunity to them could have an enormously positive impact on the world – a phenomenon called the Girl Effect.

In January, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland dedicated an entire session to the topic of investing in girls as a means to improve the global economy.  

Swan Paik of the Nike Foundation said in many nations girls are deemed a burden to the family and relatives extract as much “short-term value” as they can from their daughters by keeping them out of school so they can work around the house before eventually forcing them to marry at a young age.

Making the investment to provide a girl in a developing nation with education increases her income potential, which will likely be passed along to her family. According to the Nike Foundation, an extra year of primary school boosts a girl’s future wages by 10 to 20 per cent and when women and girls earn an income they’re likely to dedicate 90 per cent of that money to their family, as compared to 30 to 40 per cent for a man.

Paik said less than two cents of every international aid dollar goes to girls. Reversing the current trend that perpetuates poverty could “change the course of humanity,” she said.

Zainab Salbi, founder and CEO of Women for Women International, a group that provides economic opportunities for women in conflict zones, also spoke out against undervaluing women.

“If you talk about food security, women and girls are 80 per cent of the farmers in the world. We are producing 66 per cent of the food in the world. We are producing 90 per cent of all the rice and maize and corn in the world but we only earn 10 per cent of that income and we only own two per cent of that land,” she said.

Salbi said governments are “courting girls and women in their documents” but challenged the young delegates to hold politicians accountable for their promises and demand to know exactly how much money is being allocated to girls and women.

Child and maternal health will be a top focus of the meeting of G8 leaders in Huntsville, Ont. June 25-26. Jill Sheffield, president of Women Deliver, who sat on the panel Wednesday, is pleased the Canadian government is putting the issue in the forefront, but was disappointed Prime Minister Stephen Harper failed to show up at the group's major international women’s health conference earlier this month.

“He didn’t show and his mother would be disappointed that he didn’t even say I can’t come, nor did Mrs. Harper,” Sheffield told CityNews.ca.

Bev Oda, the minister of international cooperation, attended the event.

Thais Moraes, the delegate from Brazil, said she wanted to hear more discussion on abortion. The 19-year-old law student said her father, a doctor, was a member of the medical team that performed an abortion earlier this year on a nine-year-old girl who became pregnant with twins as the result of a rape. He was excommunicated from the Catholic church because of it. The Vatican later backed down on its decision.

“In Brazil, [abortion] is among the main causes of maternal death,” she said. “It’s really complicated to talk about it because of prejudices.”

Saudi Arabian delegate Anwar Basunbul (below), 20, said a lack of women in politics is a big issue in her country.

“All the departments are dominated by men. The community still believes that men are biologically more qualified to lead … we can change that mentality by the education system,” she said.

And 19-year-old Canadian delegate Leah Clare Stuart Sheppard (below), a student of international development at the University of Ottawa, wants to see an increase of women in powerful positions in the corporate world and in Parliament.

“It’s really important to make sure that there aren’t those stereotypes or barriers and to make sure that women have a voice and are equally represented in society.”