Text 4　 　　Poverty, says a group of internationally famous and important women today, is sexist. Actors Meryl Streep and Rosamund Pike, Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg, arts director Jude Kelly, entertainers Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Angelique Kidjo and Sarah Silverman, financiers Ann Cairns and Mimi Alemayehou, along with politicians from Kenya, Germany and South Africa, have signed an open letter calling for women and girls to be put at the heart of international efforts to combat hunger and misery. 　　Claiming that “women get a raw deal”, the 35 signatories declared that unless women are put at the heart of change, there will be none. Empowering women, they said, is the key to fighting the world’s inequalities and poverty. Also signing were South African/American actor Charlize Theron, and US models-turned-activists Christy Turlington and Lauren Bush Lauren—of the Bush presidential family. 　　The letter is addressed to two powerful figures: German chancellor Angela Merkel and the chair of the African Union, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Both are at the head of key meetings later this year, the G7 in Germany and the AU in South Africa, which will start to set the priorities in development funding before a main UN summit in September that will fix in place new sustainable development goals for the generation. Both have put women’s empowerment on the agenda. 　　Launching its report, entitled Poverty is Sexist, as the Woman of the World conference in London’s Southbank closed on Sunday, and also marking International Women’s Day, the charity ONE collected the signatures from the diverse group of entertainers, businesspeople, academics and politicians to urge the focus to be on women. 　　The leaders should, it said, speak up for: “the girl who can’t go to a decent primary or secondary school or access healthcare; for the mothers threatened with death when they give life and who aren’t allowed to decide when to have their next child; for the women who can’t own or inherit the land she farms, nor open a bank account, own a phone, access electricity or the legal system; for the infant girl who doesn’t legally exist because her birth wasn’t registered; for the women and girls who can’t take those who are violent towards them to court nor access justice”. 　　The letter adds: “Put simply, poverty is sexist, and we won’t end it unless we face up to the fact that girls and women get a raw deal, and until leaders and citizens around the world work together for real change. Because when we deliver for girls and women, we deliver for everyone. Realising women’s rights helps deliver everyone’s rights. If we get this right, we could help lift every girl and woman out of poverty by 2030—and by doing so we will lift everyone. Get this wrong and extreme poverty, inequality and instability might spread in the most vulnerable regions, impacting all our futures. Realising women’s rights helps deliver everyone’s rights.”