Updates

By: Jill Sheffield, President, Women Deliver

International Women’s Day is an opportunity for the global community to celebrate the contributions of girls and women to our families, communities and nations. It is also a time to reflect on the issues and challenges that face girls and women everywhere, from maternal deaths to poor access to healthcare to child marriage to violence.

Last year, Women Deliver highlighted 100 leaders who are making a difference for girls and women. This year, we released the Women Deliver 50, which puts a spotlight on inspiring ideas and solutions to improve the health and well-being of girls and women through an online contest. We put out a global call for nominations, a selection committee chose 125 finalists, and the public voted for 50 winners. Read more...

 By: Kristin Rosella, Program Associate, Strategic Partnerships, Women Deliver

Earlier this week, SAP, Churchill Club, and UNFPA co-hosted the high-level conversation “Innovating for a World of 7 Billion.” The event, which marked the official beginning of the 7-day countdown to 7 billion, gathered industry thought-leaders from around the world to discuss the challenges and opportunities that population growth presents. Read more...

By: Rachel Cernansky, winner of the Women Bloggers Deliver contest

The Millennium Development Goals are set to expire in 2015, which means it's time to start looking ahead to what happens once they do. And looking back to see what good they've served. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a report in July, highlighting progress achieved toward the goals so far, including: Read more...

A week from today, our global population will reach 7 billion. In order to highlight the magnitude of this occasion, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), continues to promote dialogue through their 7 Billion Actions Campaign. The campaign, a worldwide advocacy effort which began July 11th and ends October 31^st, aims to encourage discourse on what it means to live in a world with so many people, and to encourage action on issues that affect us all.

Interview with Jill Sheffield, President, Women Deliver from 7 Billion Actions on Vimeo.

By: Dr. Aoife Kenny, Volunteer at Women Deliver

Yesterday, Columbia University’s Earth Institute, held a public event to explore the environmental and social impact of our global population reaching 7 billion this year, and highlighted the need for women's empowerment to be at the core of any plans that look to create sustainability.

Joel Cohen, a Professor of Populations at Columbia University, gave the keynote address and discussed how decelerating population growth is essential to global development and to addressing our environmental crisis. He believes in “empowering women to be able to have the number of children they want, and educating them, so they are able to decide.” Read more...

Get Involved: Add Your Own Perspectives At The Conversations For A Better World Blog Series

By: Rachel Cernansky, blogger at Treehugger.com and winner of the Women Bloggers Deliver contest; excerpted from the original post at Treehugger.com

The connection between increased access to family planning and greenhouse gas emissions has been covered here before, but since World Contraception Day was this week and we're still so far from where we need to be on both issues, it's worth another look. Read more...

In the world's poorest countries, mothers risk their lives giving birth. And women and girls bear the greatest burden when it comes to all issues that contribute to poverty and poor health. Every year, an estimated 358,000 women die from complications during pregnancy and childbirth and 8.1 million children die before their fifth birthday.

Can blogging the stories of women and the challenges they face in the developing world turn empathy to action here? Three organizations, ONE, Women Deliver, and Vestergaard Frandsen set out to prove that social media can be a powerful tool to educate, inform, inspire, and make real change on issues like HIV/AIDS, maternal health, child health, clean water, environmental sustainability, and more. Read more...

From time to time, we will step out of our sector to see what others are saying about post 2015 goals. This is a blog from Camilla Toulmin of International Institute for Environment and Development, first published in June 2011.

IIED’s name brings together environment and development — both are essential for sustainability but they are often treated separately. Too often, we get bracketed as an environmental organisation rather than an organisation aiming for development that is consistent with long-term management of natural resources. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

Rukia Seif holds an unusual place in her community.

In addition, to being a mother of three, Seif is a population, health, and environment (PHE) peer educator in her Tanzanian village on the outskirts of Saadani National Park. Read more...

By: Toyin Ajao, winner of the Women Bloggers Deliver contest

As part of the Women Bloggers Deliver contest, and the Carbon for Water campaign, I am excited to be traveling around the Western Province of Kenya, meeting women and girls who are hard-hit by the issues associated with the Millennium Development Goals. Yesterday, I got the chance to visit the Malava’s Girls High School -- a reaffirmation time that the Millennium Development Goals are so important, especially the goal addressing women and girls’ issues. Read more...

We are so excited to announce the winners of the “Women Bloggers Deliver” competition! Over the past few weeks, we received over 250 applications from bloggers around the world – from California to Kenya, and from Mexico to Iraq. The competition, a partnership between Women Deliver and Vestergaard Frandsen, was held to draw focus and attention to the just launched Carbon for Water project, a public health intervention that will contribute significantly to health and development efforts that are transforming the lives of families and communities hard hit by the lack of clean water. The three winning bloggers will accompany community workers as they distribute LifeStraw® Family water filters to almost a million households in Kakamega, Kenya. Read more...