Story highlights Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi: Educating girls is a sure pathway to safer, more prosperous and inclusive societies

Yet at a time when we need to invest more in girls' education, we are investing less, they write

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the Chair of GAVI and the Former Minister of Finance for Nigeria. Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi is the current Minister of State for Tolerance in the United Arab Emirates. Both serve as Commissioners on the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity. The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the authors.

(CNN) In the movie "Hidden Figures," Janelle Monáe's character Mary Jackson petitions a Virginia State Court judge for the right to enroll in engineering classes at the local all-white high school. She reminds the judge that he was the first in his family to join the Armed Forces and to attend college. Now he can help her be the first female engineer at NASA. "Your Honor," Jackson says, "out of all the cases you're going to hear today, which one is going to matter one hundred years from now? Which one is going to make you the first?"

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi

"You are the first," is a phrase that the two of us, despite living in starkly different countries, have heard more times than we can remember. It resonates for us both as the world marks International Women's Day. Most notably, we are the first women appointed to our respective cabinet positions. A woman in a leadership role is a rarity in our regions, let alone women like us with economics and computer science backgrounds. No wonder: today, in 2017, 130 million school-age girls around the world are not even in school. The main reason? Existing financial resources for education, especially for girls, both within countries and by multilateral and bilateral donors, are woefully inadequate. We must, as a global community, commit to reversing troubling trends and improving outcomes when it comes to girls' education -- and education for all children.

The world renewed its commitment to changing this situation when it pledged to ensure "inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all." And this Sustainable Development Goal comes bound to the promise of results by 2030. The goal is based on the knowledge that education is the pathway for safer, more prosperous and inclusive societies. For we know that educating a girl does far more than place a child behind a desk. It is the surest pathway to reducing infant mortality, mitigating high birthrates, slowing migratory pressures and unlocking economic potential.

As noted in a recent report by our Commission, a one-year increase in schooling for girls is associated with reduction in mortality of 4.2% for children under the age of five. Furthermore, a child that begins preschool education in 2017 will see lifetime earnings nearly five times that of their parents and 12 times the cost of their education. And a case study from Brazil shows us low-income girls who participated in community preschool programs were two times more likely to reach fifth grade and three times more likely to reach eighth grade than their peers who did not attend preschool.