Updates

The Guardian newspaper has shortlisted three journalists for their coverage of how maternal, reproductive, and sexual health and rights shape the lives of girls and women and their communities as part of its fourth annual “International Development Journalism Competition.” Click through to learn more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Last month I attended a session at the 38th Annual Global Health Council Conference on immunization as a platform for family planning integration. Today I’d like to highlight a program featured at this session: a project aiming to reach high-need, postpartum women in Bamako, Mali with family planning services and counseling. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

While Timor-Leste obtained independence almost 10 years ago, it continues to suffer the aftereffects of a decades-long independence struggle against Indonesia and to face many challenges, such as building its health system and lowering its high fertility and maternal mortality rates. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

In Bihar, one of India’s least developed and most populous states, men and women seeking information on contraceptives have faced barriers of all kinds: cultural, financial and socio-economic. The need for action is apparent: 58 percent of the population is under age 25, the median age of marriage for women from traditional villages is 15, and 28 percent of women give birth to their first child before the age of 18. In response, Pathfinder’s Promoting Change in Reproductive Behavior (PRACHAR) Project has been working since 2001 to transform attitudes and behaviors around contraceptive use and demand, with the aim of delaying and spacing pregnancies among adolescents and newlywed couples. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

A few months ago I wrote about a program that works to empower young women in Guatemala by providing essential health, education, and social services to an underserved population. Today I’d like to highlight the flip side: a gender project that works with men in rural Ethiopia.

In Ethiopia, the lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 in 40 and the contraceptive prevalence rate is just 15 percent. HIV prevalence in the Amhara region is significant. The Addis Birhan (meaning “new light” in Amharic) program seeks to promote HIV prevention by changing attitudes and promoting equitable relationships through educating and engaging husbands in issues related to reproductive health, including HIV prevention, family planning, gender violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and domestic responsibilities. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

Recently released results from a one-year family planning project in Albania show that peer education and a media campaign—including TV and radio ads—about the benefits of modern contraceptive methods were associated with increased awareness, better attitudes, and greater use. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

In a nation where an estimated 14,000 women die each year from pregnancy related causes, the Pakistan Initiative for Mothers and Newborns (PAIMAN) has worked to both improve the ability of the nation’s health care sector to better meet mothers’ needs and increase demand for maternal and reproductive health services. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Because of high healthcare costs, the poorest women in Kenya often do not have access to maternity care at any point during their pregnancies. On average, a Kenyan woman without health insurance must pay almost $350 USD in order to deliver in a private health facility -- the equivalent of what some Kenyans earn in one year’s salary. Since 2005, the Government of Kenya and the German Development Bank (KfW) have been trying to reduce these cost burdens for poor women with the Output-Based Aid (OBA) Voucher Program. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

New maternal health care services are bringing hope-and survival- to the women of Georgia. For 69 years, they suffered under a Soviet medical system with inefficient hospitals and clinics, poor geographical distribution of health facilities, and rampant financial instability. Healthcare for pregnant women and their families was no better, leaving women with a 1 in 1,300 risk of maternal death over their lifetimes and lack of access to low cost family planning methods. Since the country declared independence in 1991, it has been gradually bolstering the health system with the hope of providing all citizens with the services they deserve. Read more...

By: Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund

This year, world population will hit 7 billion. With this major milestone occurring in my first year as Executive Director of UNFPA, I have an interesting and unique opportunity in leading the organization’s priorities.

One major focus will be today’s large generation of young people. There are an estimated 1.8 billion adolescents and youth aged 10 to 24, accounting for nearly a quarter of the planet's population. Just below 90 per cent of them live in developing countries and that proportion will increase during the next 20 years. They want freedom, participation and dignity and their decisions will define the future. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Early marriage, combined with high levels of illiteracy, poor health services and poverty, have pushed Yemen's maternal mortality rate to the highest in the Arab world – 1 in 91 women will die during pregnancy and childbirth in Yemen. In a country where a woman will give birth to an average of 5.5 children in her lifetime, access to family planning services, local midwives, and quality health centers is essential to combating the nutritional deficiencies, infection during delivery, and unintended pregnancies that many Yemeni women face. In an effort to expand family planning options and safe delivery services in the region, USAID has partnered with Pathfinder International through the Basic Health Services Program (BHS). Operating in 5 governorates in north and eastern Yemen, the BHS program aims to renovate health facilities, improve the supply of maternal health commodities and services, and involve local leaders in reproductive health education. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

Studies have shown that when women give birth less than 15 months after a previous birth, their risk of dying from pregnancy related causes is 150% higher than for women who wait longer to give birth again. When pregnancies are too close together, newborns can be born too soon, too small, or with a low birth weight, may not grow well and are more likely to die before the age of five. Birth spacing – allowing three to five years to pass between births – is a very important maternal and child health intervention. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Roughly 78,000 women in India die during pregnancy and childbirth per year, some of the world’s largest numbers of country-level maternal deaths. Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra are the two largest and most populous states in India, generating a large percentage of the maternal mortality and morbidity in the country. In 2008, PATH aimed to address these disparities with the Sure Start Project, a holistic approach to maternal health systems strengthening. Read more...