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By: Melinda Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Originally posted in The Independent (Uganda)

Last year, I visited a mother's group in the Korogocho slum in Nairobi to learn more about family planning in Africa. At the end of our conversation, a woman named Mary Ann told me something I'll never forget. She said she plans her family because she wants to "bring every good thing" to one child before she has another.

That desire to bring every good thing to our children must be universal, because it is also why my husband and I planned our family. We have three children, and we spaced them three years apart so we could give each one the attention they deserved. One billion people around the world use contraception for the very same reason. Read more...

By: Smita Gaith, Women Deliver

Last month, staff from Women Deliver met with high-level members of several international organizations focused on the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of women and youth. The meeting was organized to discuss the lack of emphasis on gender, SRHR, and young people in the Zero Draft document for Rio+20, which takes place this June.

The Rio+20 summit, a UN conference on sustainability, will include seven priority areas: decent jobs, energy, sustainable cities, food security and sustainable agriculture, water, oceans and disaster readiness. Despite the undisputed link between women’s health, reproductive rights, and family planning accessibility with these priorities, gender- and SRHR-related topics have not received as much attention as many believe it should have. Read more...

The 126th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly took place in Kampala, Uganda from March 31 to April 5. This meeting was the first time the IPU has debated a resolution on maternal, newborn and child health. The resolution was drafted in September by the governments of Canada, India, and Uganda, and is known as ‘Access to Health as a Basic Right: The Role of Parliaments in Addressing Key Challenges to Securing the Health of Women and Children.’ The IPU Assembly, which meets every year as a focal point for worldwide parliamentary dialogue, drew over 600 members of parliament from more than 120 countries to Kampala, Uganda. Read more...

Women Deliver is excited to announce that all scholarship applications for Women Deliver 2013 are open today.

There are two different scholarship applications - one for young people who will be under 30-years-old at the time of the conference and one for those who will be 30-years-old or over at the time of the conference. All scholarship applications are due April 23, 2012. We will offer full scholarships to a select number of participants in order to maximize participation from those who are traditionally under-represented; namely, young people and those from the Global South. This support includes conference registration, round-trip economy class airfare, hotel accomodations and a fixed stipend for visa fees and other incidentals. Read more...