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By: Serra Sippel and Zeda Rosenberg; Originally posted on Huffington Post

Nearly 20 years ago, the global community gathered at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo and declared -- for the first time -- that a woman's right and ability to control her reproductive health was fundamental to her well-being and key to global development. That meeting sparked two decades of advances for women, and the pace has been accelerating. In just the past year, the London Summit on Family Planning led to unprecedented pledges to increase access to products and services for women in developing countries, a UN Commission called for increased access to life-saving maternal health products, and the UN created new policy standards to end violence against women and girls. Read more...

By: Kate Gilmore, Deputy Executive Director (Programme) of United Nations Population Fund; Originally posted on Huffington Post

In my role at the United Nations Population Fund, I have the privilege to travel to urban, rural and remote locations to see the range of efforts being made so that every woman might give birth safely and in dignity, supported by midwives or other skilled attendants. But in many countries, a safe labor and delivery for mother and child is still a lottery -- a roll of the dice. When services are not available, when skilled birth attendants are not in reach, when information is not provided or distance or poverty or discrimination or isolation means a pregnant woman is without access to support, the consequences can be grave, indeed. Read more...

By: James Kityo, The Key Correspondents Programme

The Key Correspondents Programme is covering the Women Deliver 2013 global conference live from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia May 28 – 30.

Former sex worker and single mother Rose lives in Bwaise on the outskirts of Uganda’s capital Kampala. These days Rose, 23, provides for her three children by working in a salon plaiting hair, a skill she acquired through training from the Uganda Youth Development Link drop in centre. Read more...

By: Dr. Koki Agarwal, Director for the Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP)

This post is part of a series created in partnership by WASH Advocates and Women Deliver. For more information, please contact Cecilia Snyder csnyder@WASHadvocates.org.

The Global Action Plan of the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (GAPPD) provides a framework to prevent and treat disease in children using proven interventions that have already contributed to major reductions in child mortality. Aligned with MCHIP’s mission to utilize an integrated approach across health programs, this first-ever unified effort to protect children from two leading killers—pneumonia and diarrhea—at once will save countless lives and help countries achieve their MDG 4 targets. Read more...