Late Friday, 27 April 2012, at the 45th Session of the United Nations Commission on Population and Development (CPD), member states issued a bold resolution in support of young people’s sexual and reproductive health and human rights.
This victory comes on the heels of a UNICEF report released this week highlighting the challenges that the largest-ever generation of young people face—including HIV/AIDS, violence, and unintended pregnancy—and reaffirms long-standing international agreements including the 1994 United Nations International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action. Read more...
Updates
United Nations Adopts Landmark Resolution on Adolescents and Youth
April 30th, 2012
Op-Ed: Family Planning - a Force for Good Across Africa
April 10th, 2012
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...
TedxChange asks “How Have Contraceptives Changed Your Life?”
April 5th, 2012
By: Smita Gaith, Women Deliver
Today, TedxChange and Melinda Gates launched the No Controversy website, in the hopes that people around the world will share their stories, read about the experiences of others, and become educated on the importance of contraception and family planning. The launch, which is available on Livestream, comes three months ahead of the July 11 Family Planning Summit that will take place in London. The Summit, supported by the Department for International Development (DFID), The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other partners, seeks to generate political commitment and greater resources to meet the family planning needs of women in some of the least wealthy countries by 2020. Read more...
UN Launches Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children
March 23rd, 2012
NEW YORK, 23 March 2012 – UNICEF and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, today launched a high-level commission to improve access to essential but overlooked health supplies that could save the lives of millions of women and children every year.
“Making sure that women and children have the medicines and other supplies they need is critical for our push to achieve the MDGs,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “The Commission will tackle an overlooked but vital aspect of health systems, and ensure that women and children are protected from preventable causes of death and disease.” Read more...
Woman’s Condom: Expanding Options for Dual Protection
March 14th, 2012
By: Kimberly Whipkey, Global Advocacy Specialist, PATH; Woman's Condom is a winner of the Women Deliver 50
Women need access to dual protection and more female-controlled options.
If you’ve been following the discussion around the World Health Organization’s technical guidance on hormonal contraception and HIV, chances are you’ve seen this message emerge. So what female-controlled, dual protection methods are available today—methods that help prevent both pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV? Read more...
“Women Deliver 50” Honors Bright Ideas and Big Solutions
March 13th, 2012
By: Jessica Mack, Orginally posted on RH Reality Check
International Women’s Day, March 8, is a harbinger of lists. Those lists are usually awesome and inspiring – hundreds of women who shake the world, deliver for girls and women, or are simply deemed “top in the world.” (Why these lists don’t come out more than once or twice a year is beyond me). But this year, sifting through International Women’s Day emails, events, and announcements, I was pleasantly surprised to see a different kind of list. Read more...
Interview: ONE talks to Women Deliver Founder Jill Sheffield
March 8th, 2012
By Erin Hohlfelder; Originally posted on ONE Blog.
I recently sat down with Jill Sheffield, founder of Women Deliver, an organization that works to reduce maternal mortality and achieve universal access to reproductive health, to talk about her plans for International Women’s Day, the Women Deliver 50 list and the fight for women’s equality and empowerment. Read more...
Women Need Access to Dual Protection—Effective Contraceptives and HIV Prevention Options
February 17th, 2012
WHO recommendations related to use of hormonal contraceptives remain unchanged. The use of condoms—male and female—is a reliable method of HIV prevention.
GENEVA, 16 February 2012—A stakeholder consultation convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva has reviewed recent epidemiological studies related to HIV transmission and acquisition by women using hormonal contraceptives. After careful review of all available evidence, the stakeholders found that the data were not sufficiently conclusive to change current guidance. Read more...
10 Facts About Contraception (And How It Changed the World) That Every Man and Woman Should Know
February 14th, 2012
Excerpt of a blog by Keli Goff, author of The GQ Candidate and a Contributing Editor for Loop21.com
Below is a list of the most powerful ways contraception has impacted and continues to impact the world, from issues such as literacy to life expectancy rates of women.
1. In countries with the highest fertility rates, women have the shortest life expectancies.
Women in Sierra Leone live half as long as women in developed countries and 10 years less than their African counterparts in some African countries, and no, this is not merely due to the history of civil unrest. One in eight Sierra Leonean women dies in childbirth. In other countries like Chad, where women are likely to give birth to six or more children, women are lucky to live to age 55. Read more...
Obama’s Contraception Compromise Should Satisfy All Sides
February 10th, 2012
Originally posted in the Daily News
By: Frances Kissling, Senior Advisor to Women Deliver
One of those thorny, negotiate-for-two-generations-and-still-kill-each-other battles has been going on for months in Washington over the definition of a religious institution and whether such groups will need to comply with administration policy requiring employers to offer contraceptive coverage to their employees. Read more...
Gates Foundation: Every Woman Should Have Access to Family Planning
January 27th, 2012
By: Joanna Hoffman, Special Projects Manager
This week, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released their annual letter from Bill Gates, identifying family planning as a priority area for 2012. When women have access to family planning, Gates explains, poverty is reduced, more children are educated, and governments are better able to meet the needs of their people. This allows governments and citizens to benefit from the “demographic dividend”, referring to decreases in family size resulting in a higher number of educated youth. When these youth reach working age, they boost productivity and economic growth for their country. Read more...
Global Health and Diplomacy (GHD) Magazine Launches at the World Economic Forum
January 25th, 2012
Davos, Switzerland – January 25, 2012 - Global Health and Diplomacy (GHD), a publication that provides a forum for communication between heads of state, health ministers, first ladies, civil society leaders, the private sector and global health experts, was launched today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
This publication fills the existing gap in the dialogue between global health, diplomacy, development and security. For many years these discussions have been compartmentalized into different journals. Global health solutions need to be broad based and encompass all stakeholders, thus, a publication that allows government officials, civil society, the private sector and global health experts to engage, discuss and offer solutions is an absolute necessity. Read more...
Celebrate Solutions: Engaging Men As Partners To Change Gender-based Inequity In Health
January 23rd, 2012
By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver
Gender can influence men’s and women’s health in profound ways; social expectations of what men and women should and should not do can directly affect attitudes and behaviors related to a wide variety of health issues. Often, it is men who decide the frequency and timing of sexual activity and whether or not to use contraceptives, sometimes through coercion or violence. Gender-based violence can contribute to the spread of HIV and sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), and lead to poor reproductive health outcomes for women. And because of women’s low status in many societies, maternal health services are not prioritized. Empowering women is a critical step to turning this around, but efforts cannot end there: men must also be actively engaged as partners in change. Read more...
New Report Shows Increase In Unsafe Abortion
January 20th, 2012
By: Joanna Hoffman, Special Projects Manager
The long-term decline of abortions worldwide has stalled, and unsafe abortions are now on the rise, according to Induced Abortion: Incidence and Trends Worldwide from 1995 to 2008, a report by the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization (WHO) published yesterday by The Lancet. After a global decline in abortion rates from 35 per 1000 women in 1995 to 28 in 2008, progress has now stagnated. The proportion of unsafe abortions out of total abortions has risen from 44% in 1995 to 49% in 2008. Read more...
Melinda Gates and Nick Kristof Answer Your Questions, Part II
January 12th, 2012
By: Melinda French Gates
Originally posted by: the Impatient Optimists
Melinda Gates and Nick Kristof recently returned from a three-day trip to Bangladesh. To highlight the corresponding development issues, they agreed to answer reader's questions. This is the second installment of their three-part Q&A session.
Q. COSIMA BARLETT: My comments do not in any way detract from the profound admiration I have for you and your Foundation but a simple question: why do you not concentrate more of your efforts on American children who are so lacking in so many important areas as statistics now show? Read more...
Maternal Health, Family Planning: A Matter of Must
January 6th, 2012
Originally posted by: FrontPage Africa
By: Mae Azango, one of four African journalists to win a prestigious grant from the Pulitzer Center to cover reproductive health issues
Family planning is now a serious problem in Africa, but many women in underdeveloped Countries are denied access to modern contraception due to inadequate supplies and isolation of rural dwellers in most instances. Other women are denied family planning methods because of cultural backgrounds and religious affiliation.
One would ask why family planning is important and should be made an access free service. According to a report conducted by Women Deliver, every year more than 500,000 women and girls die from pregnancy related complications. This has amounted to one death every minute. Read more...
Celebrate Solutions: Advocating for Greater Access to Female Condoms
January 2nd, 2012
By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern
Despite continued commercial availability for more than 15 years and ongoing efforts to increase global accessibility, a massive unmet demand for female condoms still exists today. High prices—up to 30 times the price of a male condom in some places—and limited or irregular access have kept the only female-initiated contraceptive method out of reach of many women.
In particular, female condoms act as a “barrier” contraceptive, which means they physically prevent sperm from entering the uterus. Unlike other barrier contraceptives, female condoms also protect the inside and outside of the vagina, thus preventing sexually transmitted infections. Greater access to the female condom for both women and men will increase the instances of protected sex and lead to the reduction of unintended pregnancies, maternal deaths caused by unsafe abortions, and help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. To help prevent these tragedies, last month on World AIDS Day, the United Kingdom committed 5 million pounds for the distribution of female condoms in Africa. Read more...
The Power Of The “Demographic Dividend”
December 14th, 2011
By: Gary Darmstadt
Originally posted by: the Impatient Optimists
I recently had the opportunity to attend a meeting at the World Bank where global health and development leaders and finance ministers from rich and poor countries met to share experiences and learning about the demographic dividend.
The concept of the demographic dividend is that when fertility rates in a country decline, fewer births take place each year, and the size of the population of individuals who are dependent on the state grows smaller. Read more...
A Declaration in Support of A Global Campaign for Safe Abortion Access
December 6th, 2011
Dakar, Senegal, December 2, 2011 -- The following declaration was released at the International Conference on Family Planning. A similar declaration was prepared and read by the following partners during the 6th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights (APCRSHR) held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in October 2011: Asia Safe Abortion Partnership (ASAP), Concept Foundation, Women on Waves, Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR) and the International Planned Parenthood Federation East and SE Asia and Oceania Region (IPPF-ESEAOR) and South Asia Region (IPPF-SAR). Read more...
Family Planning Access Will Deliver for Women In Uganda
November 22nd, 2011
By: Dr. Jotham Musinguzi and Jill Sheffield
Originally posted in The Independent and The Daily Monitor
Next week, leaders from across Africa and around the world will meet at the 2011 International Conference on Family Planning in Dakar, Senegal. This meeting comes at a critical time, as we examine how to navigate a world with increasingly constrained resources and create a future that fosters health and development worldwide. The meeting also occurs during World AIDS Day. Women now comprise the majority of those living with HIV in Africa, and access to male and female condoms to prevent both HIV and unwanted pregnancy is crucial. Read more...