Updates

Despite progress, health system shortfalls and gender discrimination are severely impacting women’s health worldwide, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) report Women and Health: Today’s Evidence, Tomorrow’s Agenda.

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.

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.

This blog-post was originally published at Conversations for a Better World, a shared blog on population gender and health.

Women around the world have had to struggle for decades, for centuries, to achieve equal rights and to achieve the human rights every man and woman deserves. And while the struggle has resulted in many positive steps forward, there are still areas where women are considered less than their male counterparts.

I wanted to write in to share information on a project that has shown real progress. A report by UNICEF India in January 2009 found that about a million neonatal deaths occur in the country each year.

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.

Following the legalization of abortion in Nepal in 2002, abortion services have been provided safely at both government and private facilities throughout the country, according to a new study released by Ipas.

According to a representative from IPPF, and as a result of advocacy activities by Tanzanian civil society, the Tanzania government has tripled is national budget line allocated for contraceptives to $7.65 million.

This week, UNFPA met with representatives of more than 40 international faith-based organizations to explore partnership potential during a two-day policy roundtable. UNFPA believe that this partnership is critical to reducing maternal deaths and ending violence against women worldwide.

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.

Today, supermodel, actress, and mother Liya Kebede posted to the Huffington Post about, "We Need a Global Fund for Moms."

Earlier this month, Sia Nyama Koroma, First Lady of the Republic of Sierra Leone, wrote an article on Huffington Post titled, "It's Time to Make Mothers a Priority."

Our very own Jill Sheffield has posted on Conversations for a Better World as a "conversation starter." In her blog post, she writes: