Updates

By: Liza Donnelly, Forbes Contributor; Originally posted on Forbes

The global advocacy group, Women Deliver, is hosting its third conference, May 28-30, 2013, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This conference brings together thousands of activists, world leaders, healthcare professionals, corporate leaders, NGOs and global media outlets from around the world to discuss how to help improve the lives of women and girls. For the event, I was honored to be invited to curate an exhibit of international cartoonist’s art on the subject of women’s rights. The artwork, gathered from cartoonists from 22 different countries, is also collected and published in a book, titled, “Women Deliver, The World Receives.” It was wonderful to be given the opportunity to invite my colleagues to submit their artwork on the subject of women and women’s rights. Cartoons can get at the heart of difficult and important subjects in ways that words often cannot. It takes a village, and the village usually has a cartoonist or two. Read more...

By: Purnima Mane, President and CEO of Pathfinder International; Originally posted on Huffington Post

The first official day of the 3rd annual Women Deliver Conference just wrapped up. Perhaps the biggest takeaway here so far is the incredible presence and engagement of young people.

More than 100 young leaders have travelled from around the world to share their experiences, energy, and wisdom. Each of these young leaders is working to improve the health and well-being of women and girls in their communities. They joined a catalyzing pre-conference event on Monday that inspired Pathfinder's Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Advisor Callie Simon to share, "These young leaders here rock my world. Days like these that make it all worth it." Read more...

By: Dr. Priya Agrawal, Executive Director, Merck for Mothers

As the saying goes, “If better is possible, good is not enough.” This is certainly the case with efforts to reduce maternal mortality, which is not declining fast enough.

One area where I believe we can do “better” in delivering maternal health services is within the local private health sector.

In many developing countries – like India, Nigeria, and Uganda – most people get their healthcare from private providers. When people are in need of care, they often turn to a local doctor or nurse because of flexible hours; or visit a nearby pharmacy because it’s convenient; or perhaps even get care from a community health worker traveling door-to-door who they know and trust. Read more...

By: Victoria Melhado, Women Deliver Young Leader 2013

Victoria is one of 100 Young Leaders from around the world selected to participate in a leadership development program as part of the 2013 Women Deliver conference in Kuala Lumpur, May 27-30, 2013. The youth pre-conference is sponsored by Johnson & Johnson. Follow Victoria during the conference at @Vicmelhado.

My path to becoming a nurse, midwife, and an advocate for women’s health began before I knew what any of those things were. Read more...  

By: Kate Gilmore, Deputy Executive Director (Programme) of United Nations Population Fund; Originally posted on Huffington Post

In my role at the United Nations Population Fund, I have the privilege to travel to urban, rural and remote locations to see the range of efforts being made so that every woman might give birth safely and in dignity, supported by midwives or other skilled attendants. But in many countries, a safe labor and delivery for mother and child is still a lottery -- a roll of the dice. When services are not available, when skilled birth attendants are not in reach, when information is not provided or distance or poverty or discrimination or isolation means a pregnant woman is without access to support, the consequences can be grave, indeed. Read more...

By: Paula R DeCola, External Medical Affairs,  Pfizer Inc

It has been quite a journey leading up to this third Women Deliver (WD) conference. In London 2007, the WD conference focused on advocating for better progress in reducing maternal mortality, since the numbers of deaths were the same as those reported at the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women. Then onto WD conference 2009 in Washington DC, where we saw a decline in maternal deaths in a number of high burden countries, and of course campaigning for continued progress, as well as for expanding advocacy to encompass the insidious neglect of the girl child. Read more...

By: Dr. Helene D. Gayle, President and CEO of CARE USA and Dr. Julia Newton-Howes, President and CEO of CARE Australia

Next month, representatives from leading NGOs, advocates, government officials and donors will gather at the Women Deliver 2013 Conference in Kuala Lumpur to ensure that the health and rights of girls and women remain at the forefront of global humanitarian and development agendas.

Since the first conference in 2007, there has been an unprecedented expansion of global commitments to the health and welfare of women and girls. Real progress has been made indicated by a 47 percent decline in maternal mortality worldwide between 1990 and 2010. Read more...

By: Adam Lewis, Rabin Martin; Originally posted on Rabin Martin

“We are agents of change, we are drivers of progress, we are makers of peace – all we need is a fighting chance.”

This quote from Hillary Clinton at the 2013 Newsweek/Daily Beast Women in the World summit certainly captured the theme of the conference. Of course, by “we,” the former Secretary of State is referring to women – and how fitting for someone who is herself an agent of change, a driver of progress and a maker of peace to call for more rights for women. Read more...

Originally posted on ThinkBrigade

This opinion piece is published in collaboration with Women Deliver 100 Young Leaders, liaised by Bijoyeta Das. Gonzalo Infante Grandón is one of the 100 Young Leaders for 2012-2013.

In the new millennium (2000-2011), there have been nearly 3 million births in Chile (2,751,540 to be exact), 75% of them in the public sector, and the remaining 25% in private institutions. Trends showing the increase in caesareans are clear: while in the year 2000 the total number (that includes both public and private medical institutions) of caesareans represented 36% of all births, in 2011 this figure reached 48%. Read more...

By: Williams Moi; Originally posted on KeyCorrespondents.org

The Key Correspondents Programme is covering the Women Deliver 2013 global conference live from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia May 28 – 30. 

Once upon a time, there was a woman from eastern Uganda who walked all the way from Kamuda village to Soroti town 12 kilometres away only to deliver on the bare ground outside the hospital while people looked on. Luckily enough, I had visited the hospital administrator that day. He told me he had seen people gather around a woman in the hospital compound grounds. “It was a pity as people continue to stare at her as she fell on the bare-ground on her back ready to deliver. She spreads and kicked her legs on the bare ground,” he said. Read more...

By: Jaime-Alexis Fowler, Associate Director of Public Relations and Online Communications at Pathfinder International; Originally posted on Pathfinder International

This post is part of Pathfinder's "Women Who Dare" series in celebration of International Women's Day 2013.

Jill Sheffield is the founder and President of Women Deliver, an international advocacy organization dedicated to advancing political action around and investment in maternal health. Jill is a tireless advocate for women’s health who credits her time spent in a Kenyan maternity hospital as the inspiration for her work. Jill’s daring work has been a contributing factor to increased international attention to maternal mortality, an area of continued need given the stalled progress on lowering maternal mortality.  Read more...

By: Karen Beattie, Director of Fistula Care and Associate Vice President of Strategy and Impact, EngenderHealth; Originally posted on EngenderHealth

Reflections from Karen Beattie, a lifelong global women’s health advocate on the closing ceremony of the Global Maternal Health Conference, 2013
It was the end of three days of meetings, and I seriously considered skipping out on the closing plenary session. But – I knew Dr. Mahmoud Fathalla would be speaking and I have learned that one should never miss an opportunity to hear his thoughts. For those uninitiated, Dr. Fathalla is a professor at Assiut University in Egypt, a former head of the reproductive health division at WHO, and the father of the Safe Motherhood initiative. Read more...

By: Purnima Mane, President and CEO of Pathfinder International; Originally posted on Huffington Post

In March of this year, on International Women’s Day, I asked, “Is 2012 the Year for Women and Girls?”  Now, as the year winds to a close, I find myself looking back on my call for stronger partnerships, more global coalitions and wondering, are those enough? 2012 was a year for women. We saw tremendous renewal of the commitment by world leaders to ensure that countries and communities have the political support and financial resources needed to improve access to sexual and reproductive health. Read more...

By: Lisa Russell, MPH, an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker and co-founder of MDGFive.com; Originally posted on Huffington Post

I came across a photograph on my Facebook news feed a few months ago that depicted a mural in Rome scribed with the quote, "The role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible."

As a documentary filmmaker and social activist, my first reaction was to share it amongst my more so-called "radical" artist colleagues who are participating in revolutionary movements, such as those in the Middle East, or protesting police brutality in New York City, or engaging in some other form of political protest. However, I realized I should have forwarded it to my maternal health colleagues as well. Read more...