Updates

At 2:30 p.m. EST this Friday, January 8, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will make a major speech commemorating the 15^th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and will reaffirm U.S. support for achieving the ICPD goals. As you know, the ICPD put forth a vision and framework for achieving sustainable development and reducing global poverty that made gender equality, human rights, and comprehensive reproductive health a priority - things we continue to advocate for today in U.S. foreign assistance.

Through distance learning with U.S. volunteers, Afghan women are learning writing skills and filling a blog with their thoughts about love, politics and family, according to an article in Womens eNews:

In more than 100 entries about love, politics and a variety of other topics, Roya, Seeta and a small group of other Afghan women are able to express themselves freely, something women like them cannot always do.

Population Action International has just announced that they will provide a small grants program dedicated to supporting and empowering young people to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).   PAI will support organizations and networks in the three following countries: Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.  Young people are often at a great disadvantage, especially when it comes to accessing accurate, timely information about their reproductive health needs.  Thus, PAI seeks to provide dedicated resources for advocacy to support young people in developing appropriate strategies for increasing resources and attention for sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Cell phones have cut dramatically the number of women dying during childbirth in Amensie village in south-central Ghana, according to an article posted on AlertNet.

“The theme of this year’s World AIDS Day is Universal Access and Human Rights. For me, that means doing everything we can to support countries to reach their universal access goals for HIV prevention, treatment, care and support - all the while protecting and promoting human rights.”

- UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé
2009 World AIDS Day message

It’s time, right? Gender-based violence (GBV) can pervade a woman’s entire life cycle, beginning with selective abortion of a female fetus to female genital mutilation/cutting to intimate partner violence. GBV is usually perpetrated by men against women and girls, and it can take many forms – sexual abuse, physical violence, emotional or psychological abuse, verbal abuse, economic abuse or beatings during pregnancy. GBV jeopardizes a woman’s health and well-being and detracts from her reproductive health.

Despite progress, health system shortfalls and gender discrimination are severely impacting women’s health worldwide, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) report Women and Health: Today’s Evidence, Tomorrow’s Agenda.

This weekend, the Christian Science Monitor published an article called, “Amid war Afghanistan trains thousands of new midwives.” The article says:

Pashtoon Azfar, head of the Afghan Midwives Association, says the number of trained midwives has grown nearly six-fold since rebuilding effort in Afghanistan began. “In 2002, we had 467 midwives, but no one knew how qualified they were; for years, they had received no access to training,” says Ms. Azfar, also a midwifery specialist with the international nonprofit health organization Jhpiego, whose maternal health programs are funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Today, there are more than 2,400 midwives around the country who have been trained in a standardized and accredited two-year program, she says.

Below is the speech delivered by Imane Khachani, MD, Msc, from the Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights for the High-Level Meeting at the International Parliamentarians' Conference on the Implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action.

This blog-post was originally published at Conversations for a Better World, a shared blog on population gender and health.

Women around the world have had to struggle for decades, for centuries, to achieve equal rights and to achieve the human rights every man and woman deserves. And while the struggle has resulted in many positive steps forward, there are still areas where women are considered less than their male counterparts.

First Ladies have a unique position… they have ability to whisper in the ears of some of the most important people in the nation. And through these passionate and influential advocates, there’s the opportunity to address some of the biggest challenges facing girls and women.

This blog-post was originally published at Conversations for a Better World, a shared blog on population, gender, and health.

“Ask for what you want. Take what you get. Then, use what you’ve got to get what you want.”

An old cliché says that "all politics is local" - that people's votes are driven more by the quality of local services like garbage collection than by debates on big national issues.

By Jill Sheffield, President

Blazing Trails... Looking back at all the watershed milestones that emerged from the 1994 ICPD, what thrills me the most is the course that was set to acknowledge the right for all people of the world, especially women, to have access to quality sexual and reproductive health. 

On August 23, the NY Times has a special issue of the their magazine dedicated to "Saving the World's Women." We've been waiting in anticipation of this issue -- salivating over the cover-to-cover coverage of topics focused on women.

The First Lady of Zambia, Thandiwe Banda, has called for concerted efforts among stakeholders to reduce cases of maternal mortality and morbidity in her own country.

This week, UNFPA met with representatives of more than 40 international faith-based organizations to explore partnership potential during a two-day policy roundtable. UNFPA believe that this partnership is critical to reducing maternal deaths and ending violence against women worldwide.