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Brief Insights From the Global Maternal Health Conference 2010

By: Kate Mitchell from the Maternal Health Task Force; orginally posted at the MHTF Blog

Today (August 30, 2010) marked the first day of the Global Maternal Health Conference in Delhi. Throughout the day, the nearly 700 conference participants–made up of maternal health researchers, programmers, advocates, social entrepreneurs, policymakers, and  young professionals–shared a number of insights, lessons learned, recommendations and innovative ideas for improving the health of women around the world.

Click through to read brief insights from the Inaugural Ceremony speeches...

New Video Highlights “Adding It Up” Report Findings

"Adding It Up: The Costs and Benefits of Investing in Family Planning and Maternal and Newborn Health," a report released in late 2009 by UNFPA and The Guttmacher Institute, has just launched a motion graphics video to help advocate for increased funding for family planning and maternal and newborn care.

A Silent Phenomenon Spreads HIV

By: Robert Mukondiwa, one of the Women Deliver 100 Young Leaders, and journalist in Zimbabwe, originally posted at Conversations for a Better World

Young sex workers in rural Zimbabwe have embarked on a fatal path that increases their likelihood of contracting and spreading HIV. Poverty and a lack of information intensify the problem, but instead of embracing the challenge with effective solutions, many are turning away in denial... Read more of Robert's story and join the conversation.

Stigma and Discrimination Surrounding HIV/AIDS

By: Angella Musiimenta, one of the Women Deliver 100 Young Leaders, from Uganda; orginally posted at Conversations for a Better World

A young woman in Uganda contracts HIV/AIDS and faces relentless prejudice that alters every aspect of her life. She is only one of the millions of young people whose physical challenges are multiplied by the cruelties of social discrimination. Read Angella's blog and discuss how stigma affects young women.

Letter to the African Heads of State (Sign Your Name!)

It is a simple truth: The Millennium Development Goals will not be achieved in Africa without addressing sexual and reproductive health. In 2006, recognizing that women and girls deliver enormous social and economic benefits to their families, communities, and nations, the African Union boldly adopted a short-term plan to achieve the MDGs and save women’s lives in their continent: The Maputo Plan of Action. You understood the needs and realities of your countries, you came together, and you adopted a plan that moved sexual and reproductive health higher on Africa’s political agenda. We commend you for taking the lead in addressing sexual and reproductive health, including maternal health and family planning.

Now, the Maputo Plan of Action is about to expire, and we’re calling on you to reenergize your efforts to achieve the goals that you set in 2006. It’s time to build on the legacy of the Maputo Plan, and to move forward with renewed determination to save the lives of millions of women and girls. [Read more...]

G8 Communiqué Commits to Maternal Health, Child Health, and Family Planning; Safe Abortion Absent

By: Janna Oberdorf, Communications Manager for Women Deliver

The G8 leaders have released their communiqué, the consensus reached during the last two days of discussions. As we’ve blogged about over the past days, Canada placed maternal and child health at the forefront of the G8 discussion. As the communiqué states:

“Progress towards MDG 5, improving maternal health, has been unacceptably slow. Although recent data suggests maternal mortality has been declining, hundreds of thousands of women still lose their lives every year, or suffer injury, from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Much of this could be prevented with better access to strengthened health systems, and sexual and reproductive health care and services, including voluntary family planning. Progress on MDG 4, reducing child mortality, is also too slow. Nearly 9 million children die each year before their fifth birthday. These deaths profoundly concern us and underscore the need for urgent collective action. We reaffirm our strong support to significantly reduce the number of maternal, newborn and under five child deaths as a matter of immediate humanitarian and development concern. Action is required on all factors that affect the health of women and children. This includes addressing gender inequality, ensuring women’s and children’s rights and improving education for women and girls."

Read more...

The Numbers Game: The G8 Commits $5 Billion

By: Janna Oberdorf, Communications Manager for Women Deliver

Following up on Canada’s pledge of $1.1 billion of new money over five years, the G8 countries pledge a total of $5 billion. Bolstered by another $2.3 billion from six non-G8 countries, the Gates Foundation, and the UN Foundation, that brings the total contributions to maternal and child health to $7.3 billion.

“Some countries pledged relatively more than others, at least relative to the size of their economies,” said Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “Obviously the differences in pledges have to do with differences in priorities, but also differences in financial situations.”

New Campaigns on Maternal and Child Mortality Buoyed by Progress Reported on MDGs

Updated data on mortality rates among mothers and young children are likely to encourage G8 leaders, who at their meeting later this week will make this health issue – long considered a neglected area of international development efforts – a 2010 priority.

According to the United Nations annual assessment of progress on the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), released today, the number of deaths among children under the age of 5 has dropped from 12.6 million in 1990 to an estimated 8.8 million in 2008, corresponding to a decline in the mortality rate from 100 deaths per 1,000 live births to 72 in 2008 (a 28 per cent decline). But progress is falling short of the MDG target under Goal 4, for a two-thirds reduction in childhood mortality rates between 1990 and 2015, and millions of children continue to die each year at a tragically young age.  

Statement from the First Ladies of Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Zanzibar

Hello. We are the first ladies of Ghana, Sierra Leone and Zanzibar and are honored to stand before you today. We believe that the first human right is the right to safe and healthy lives. Maternal mortality denies women prematurely that right and the rate of maternal deaths speaks loudly about the health status of a country. The problems women share recognize no borders. Read more...

Leadership and Management, a Key Ingredient for Improving Maternal Health

By: Dr. Morsi Mansour, Principal Program Associate on the Leadership, Management and Sustainability Program at Management Sciences for Health

Last week at the Women Deliver Conference in Washington, DC, Melinda Gates announced that the Gates Foundation  is committing $1.5 Billion in new grant money for maternal health. “Women and children have moved up on the global agenda, and I’m here to tell you that’s where they are going to stay,” said Gates.

In most developing countries, women and girls are the poorest and most vulnerable parts of the population because of entrenched inequalities. MSH believes that health is a human right; equal access is essential to all aspects of health care. Leadership and management is a key ingredient for improving maternal health – it’s the human element of a health system. Leadership and management is often a missed ingredient. But, effective, simple interventions can save a lot of lives.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Addresses the Women Deliver 2010 Conference

Watch Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, as she addresses and opens the Women Deliver 2010 conference and calls for greater attention and action for maternal health, reproductive health, and women's health around the world. "Women deliver for the world," she says. "Now the world needs to deliver for women."

Ali Larter Is Ready to be a Hero for Women and Girls

By: Tamar Abrams, originally posted on The Huffington Post

Ali Larter, the luminous star of TV shows such as "Heroes" and films including "Legally Blonde" and "Obsessed." Is also a newly minted advocate for reproductive rights for women and girls. At the Women Deliver conference taking place in Washington DC this week, women in native African garb pass Parliamentarians and scientists, while First Ladies from Ghana and Zanzibar mingle with Arianna Huffington and UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon. And wandering among the thousands of delegates from over 140 countries is Ali Larter. If she weren't accompanied by a small retinue and the occasional camera, she would likely be overlooked. So why has the successful young actress with a lingering cold flown all the way to Washington for a policy-wonkish conference spanning three days? Because the United Nations Foundation asked.

Filling the Unmet Need for Contraception: Can We Deliver for Young Women?

Source: RH Reality Check

By Carmen Barroso, International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR)

When we speak about universal access to contraceptives and the huge unmet need for family planning services that exists in the world today, the image that usually comes to mind is that of poor women in Africa. Indeed, in most countries, poor women have a much higher rate of unmet need than do women with higher incomes, and in Africa, unmet need for contraception is much higher than in other regions. More than 60 percent of women of reproductive age have an unmet need for contraception in Africa. more...

Women Deliver Conference Opens with Promises of Action

By Joanne Omang

WASHINGTON, June 7—It was the personal stories that resonated most.

The Women Deliver 2010 conference opened today with certified heavy hitters sending the right messages out to the world about women’s health needs: “If we act now, and act together, we can deliver for women,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon about his global agencies. “You can count on us.”

Good to hear, yes. But the 3,000 attendees really caught their collective breath when Ban recalled his own birth in a home in rural Korea, and about wondering as a child why pregnant women would gaze at their shoes before going into the delivery room. It’s because they are wondering if they will ever step into those shoes again, his mother told him.

Motherhood then was a life-threatening experience, and it still is in too much of the world today, Ban said. So began his life’s work, “a journey to help every woman step back into her shoes again after giving birth."  more...

Women Deliver Promises Hope Around the World

By: Tamar Abrams, originally posted on The Huffington Post

In a cavernous convention center in the heart of the Nation's Capitol, thousands of people have gathered to celebrate the role of women in the well-being of families, communities and nations. They are also gathered to push for improvements in maternal and newborn health. Women in native dress from all over the world stride purposefully through the spacious hallways -- midwives, doctors, advocates, lawyers, mothers and grandmothers, Parliamentarians, elected officials, Hollywood stars, and wide-eyed young people. It is a colorful tapestry of ethnic, age, and geographic diversity. more...

The Lancet Devotes Entire Themed Issue to Women Deliver

Large numbers of the public remain unaware of the health issues facing women and children. Women and girls make up 60% of the world’s poorest and two-thirds of the world’s illiterate. Yet with education and empowerment, they can lead healthy lives and lift themselves and their families out of poverty. To devise a plan to make women and children’s health more visible, we must listen harder to voices from those countries where most maternal and child death take place. Too often we ignore these voices. A themed issue of The Lancet covers a range of global issues on maternal, child, and newborn health.

Click here to read the entire issue and articles

Crown Princess of Denmark Becomes Patron of UNFPA to Support Women’s Health

H.R.H. Crown Princess Mary of Denmark has become Patron of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, to support the agency's work to promote maternal health and safer motherhood in more than 150 developing nations. This work is a UNFPA key priority because women have about 1 in 7 lifetime risk of maternal death in a few developing countries; compared to 1 in 17,800 in Denmark, according to the latest published United Nations estimates. more...

Maternal Health Conference Examines Progress, Challenges; Pushes Donors Toward US$12 Billion

Women Deliver features global leaders from nearly 140 countries, including advocates, UN agencies, researchers, government officials, ministers of health and finance, and first ladies.

The world’s largest conference on women’s health and empowerment in more than a decade opens on Monday, June 7, with a call to increase funding commitments for maternal, reproductive, and newborn health by US$12 billion each year. At Women Deliver 2010, more than 3,000 representatives from nearly 140 countries will highlight the urgent need to save the lives of the 350,000-500,000 women who die from pregnancy- and childbirth-related causes each year, citing new economic rationale for investing in women.

Annie Lennox Appointed as International UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador

In her new role as International UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador, Ms Lennox will be in Washington D.C. with Mr Sidibé, from the 7-9 of June to participate in the Women Deliver 2010 conference and 2010 Global Business Coalition conference. She will use these events to advocate for a global movement to focus on the HIV-specific needs of women and girls as well as to empower women and girls so that they can better protect themselves from HIV.

Originally posted at UNAIDS.

Geneva, 2 June 2010 – The world renowned Scottish singer songwriter and women’s activist Annie Lennox has been named as International Goodwill Ambassador for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). With an award winning career spanning several decades, Ms. Lennox is one of the world’s most outstanding musical voices. Now, she renews her commitment to speak out for women and girls affected by the HIV epidemic.

A New Role for Africans in Global Maternal Health

By Dr. Fred Sai, co-host of Women Deliver 2010 and former advisor to the Ghanaian government on reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. You can follow the live stream of the Women Deliver 2010 conference from June 7th to 9th at www.womendeliver.org/webcast.

Originally posted at ONE blog.

This March, the Lancet released new statistics that revealed an unprecedented drop in the number of women who die every year during pregnancy and childbirth. The study found that from 1980 to 2008, maternal deaths globally have fallen from 500,000 each year to 340,000. Having spent some 40 years working on women and children’s health in Ghana and across Africa, I welcomed this progress. But as the world celebrated, I also couldn’t help but wonder, “Where is Africa?”

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