Updates

By: Victoria Hale, PhD, CEO at Medicines360

Most people have one life changing, “ah-ha” moment in their lives, but in my case, I had two. The first moment came when I was sitting in the back of a New York City taxi, and the driver asked me what I did for a living. When I told him that I was a pharmaceutical scientist, he said, “Oh, you have all the money!” And, in that moment, my first company, OneWorld Health, was born.

OneWorld Health is a first-generation non-profit pharmaceutical company created as an innovative, gutsy initiative to develop drugs to treat people with neglected tropical diseases. This charity model is entirely dependent on others—that is, on large grants from philanthropists and on the for-profit pharmaceutical industry for the delivery of medicines to the poor. Read more...

By: Lindsey Taylor Wood, Communications Associate

In Northern Nigeria, 1 in 23 women will die in pregnancy or childbirth. In fact, 10% of maternal deaths, globally, occur there; and rates of newborn and child mortality are also amongst the highest in the world. Read more...

On 31 October 2011, global population will pass the 7 billion mark - more than double the number of people who were alive 50 years ago. Most of this growth is taking place in the world’s poorest countries. This will add to the pressures that their governments face to provide basic services like health and education for their people. 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...

By: Jill Sheffield, President of Women Deliver; originally published in the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Reference Report 2011

Improving maternal health gives a high return on investment. The loss of a woman’s life or health is not just a loss to her family, but it is also a loss to the community and the nation as a whole. While nations need to keep building towards the ultimate goal of strengthening health systems, there are investments that can be made today, right now, to decrease maternal death and injury. Most of these solutions are low-cost, highly effective, and can begin to show results almost immediately. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

Could chickpeas be a potential solution for meeting two of Ethiopia’s biggest challenges: child malnourishment and an underperforming economy?

PepsiCo, the World Food Programme (WFP), and USAID believe so. That’s why the company is entering into an innovative public-private partnership with the WFP and USAID to promote food and economic security in the east African nation. Under Enterprise EthioPEA, the three organizations will work with nearly 10,000 Ethiopian farmers to double chickpea yields by utilizing modern agricultural practices and better irrigation techniques. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern

In 2008, while attempting to escape fighting in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, Fadhumo* fled the city with two of her seven children. After seeking shelter in the Bariga Bosasso refugee settlement, she was eventually reunited with her sister and remaining children.

Security was limited, however, and the then-pregnant Fadhumo was raped by two men. “I tried to fight them off but they were much stronger. They beat me viciously, breaking both my wrists. They raped me repeatedly without caring that I was pregnant,” Fadhumo told the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). As a result of the rape, Fadhumo lost her unborn child and fell into a deep depression. Her ability to support herself or her other children diminished. Thankfully, Fadhumo is now rebuilding her life, has re-launched her grocery business and joined a support group for rape survivors. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Strategic Partnerships Associate at Women Deliver 

Why is it that you can get a bottle of soda almost anywhere in the world, but not essential health products? Companies like Coca-Cola have mastered the art of shipping and logistics, reaching the most remote places in the world with their products. ColaLife, a non-profit enterprise, asked this same question and decided to leverage the power and efficiency of Coca-Cola’s distribution systems to bring simple health products to the hardest-to-reach communities.

The need for essential health products is great. Read more...

By: Serra Sippel, President of the Center for Health and Gender Equity

The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) deadlines are coming up in 2014 and 2015 respectively, and will quickly pass. What will come next? Deadline extensions? A single health MDG? A combined solution of a new mechanism with new deadline? When it comes to maternal health—to women’s health—does this matter? 

Consider the ICPD goal of universal access to reproductive health through the primary health system by 2015. The goal was adopted in 2007 as a target for reaching MDG 5 on maternal health. Universal access to reproductive health through primary care is not merely access to contraceptive supplies, or safe delivery in pregnancy. Read more...

By: Joanna Hoffman, Special Projects Manager

Last week on September 28th, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution reaffirming the importance of addressing maternal mortality and morbidity, and calling for direct action to save mothers’ lives. Specifically, the resolution calls for the development of practical guidance, through an expert workshop, to assist States, the United Nations system and all stakeholders in applying human-rights based frameworks to programs and policies aimed at preventing maternal death and disability. Read more...

By: Lindsey Taylor Wood, Communications Associate at Women Deliver

Nearly 730,000 women are living with HIV in Tanzania. Among them is 61-year old Faith. One of 1,600 women and men participating in the “Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB)” training program, Faith now has access to the entrepreneurial skills-building and HIV awareness-raising activities the program provides.

“I learnt that you need money or a business to generate enough income to be able to travel to town for regular check-ups and to collect antiretroviral drugs. We do not have these services at our village dispensary,” said Faith. Read more...

The third week of September was a busy one for Women Deliver. The United Nations General Assembly and the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), amongst other events, filled the city with Heads of State and agents of change, providing ample opportunity to discuss maternal health, sexual and reproductive rights and gender equity.  Here are a few of our highlights:

• The World Bank: “Realizing the Demographic Dividend, Challenges and Opportunities for Ministers of Finance and Development” panel focused on the policy actions necessary in family planning, health, education, gender equality, and labor market policies, if positive economic returns are to be secured. Women Deliver Founder and President, Jill Sheffield, who spoke at the event, reinforced this point by stating: "The fact is: that women drive economic development. They operate the majority of small businesses and farms in developing countries and their unpaid work equals roughly 1/3 of the GDP." Read more...

By: Joy Marini, Director Corporate Contributions, Johnson & Johnson

A few months ago, I was sitting in a room full of “dai-moms” -- lay midwives in Dhaka, Bangladesh. These women are amazing. One of the most intriguing things about them is how they keep track of their activities. They use knotted ropes that they tuck carefully into their waistbands. Many of these midwives cannot read or write, so they keep an account of all births that they attend with the rope of tiny knots. Every knot represents a birth. Every knot represents a life. The dai-moms even remember who is represented by each knot and return to the families for newborn checks. Our partners -- Narigrantha Prabartana and the Global Fund for Women -- support these dai-moms with education, camaraderie and motivation, all of which are in short supply in the harsh, remote environments where the dai-moms work. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, public health student at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in Reproductive and Family Health.

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

They say kids in Los Angeles grow up fast. Sitting across from a girlfriend over lunch the summer after my sophomore year of high school, I learned there could be truth in this statement. Following a pause in our conversation, she admitted her real reason for calling to see me – she’d had an abortion a few weeks prior. I sat in disbelief. We were fifteen. Read more...