Updates

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.

Water use has grown at more than twice the rate of the world’s population over the past century, mostly for agricultural purposes, according to the 2009 United Nations Millennium Development Goals Report. This has left 884 million people at risk for–or already facing–a water shortage. And though we rarely think of the connection between maternal health and water, it’s one of the most important elements for women’s health. When women don’t have clean latrines and hand-washing stations, they often have poor hygiene practices that can lead to the spread of waterborne illnesses such as cholera, diarrhea, hepatitis and typhoid fever.

Yesterday, the world’s largest malaria conference, The 5^th Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) Pan-African Conference, opened with a call for substantial and sustained support for research to guide evidence-based policies and the development of new malaria tools, which together could save countless lives. Watch this interview video with Dr. Rose Leke, University of Yaounde 1, Cameroon, where she discusses the dangers of malaria during pregnancy — and how to prevent it.

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.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity in the 21^st century. As the international community gears up for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December, the reproductive health and rights community is starting to look closely at the links between RH and climate change.

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.

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.

Last week, the Population Reference Bureau launched the annual World Population Data Sheet, highlighting country, regional, and global population, health, and environment data and patterns.

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, Akimbo, the blog for the International Women's Health Coalition, published a 3-part series on the importance of investing in women taken from a speech given at the 20th World Population Day in Abuja, Nigeria.

Amnesty International just uploaded this video. Watch it and then read this article on CNN.com about pregnancy and childbirth in Peru.

The International Initiative on Maternal Mortality and Human Rights (IIMMHR) just released a publication called "The Missing Link: Applied Budget Work as a Tool to Hold Governments Accountable for Maternal Mortality Reduction Commitments."

A few months ago, Deepali Gaur Singh wrote a piece on the Huffington Post about maternal mortality in India and Women Deliver's efforts to improve maternal health in this region.

The Millennium Development Goals were set with the target deadline of 2015. We probably don't have to tell you -- we are not even close. In fact, MDG 5 (reduce maternal mortality) is the most off-track of all the MDGs, as stated by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

In Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem's Women's eNews' piece, "Mothers Should Not Die Giving Life," he puts a face on the stats -- his sister, Asmau.