Updates

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

The Moroccan Ministry of Health last week hosted a scientific meeting to share lessons on its success in reducing maternal mortality by 60 percent since 1990—a success that has won it the distinction of being “one of a small group of countries ‘on track’ to achieve MDG 5 by 2015,” according to UNFPA. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Across the developing world, women workers are a rising force in manufacturing industries, yet many of these women don’t have access to adequate healthcare or knowledge of their health-related rights in the workplace. The HERproject, founded by BSR (Business for Social Responsibility), is working to change that with a peer-driven health education initiative that focuses specifically on women workers in factories in Pakistan. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

In a nation where an estimated 14,000 women die each year from pregnancy related causes, the Pakistan Initiative for Mothers and Newborns (PAIMAN) has worked to both improve the ability of the nation’s health care sector to better meet mothers’ needs and increase demand for maternal and reproductive health services. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Early marriage, combined with high levels of illiteracy, poor health services and poverty, have pushed Yemen's maternal mortality rate to the highest in the Arab world – 1 in 91 women will die during pregnancy and childbirth in Yemen. In a country where a woman will give birth to an average of 5.5 children in her lifetime, access to family planning services, local midwives, and quality health centers is essential to combating the nutritional deficiencies, infection during delivery, and unintended pregnancies that many Yemeni women face. In an effort to expand family planning options and safe delivery services in the region, USAID has partnered with Pathfinder International through the Basic Health Services Program (BHS). Operating in 5 governorates in north and eastern Yemen, the BHS program aims to renovate health facilities, improve the supply of maternal health commodities and services, and involve local leaders in reproductive health education. Read more...

Through distance learning with U.S. volunteers, Afghan women are learning writing skills and filling a blog with their thoughts about love, politics and family, according to an article in Womens eNews:

In more than 100 entries about love, politics and a variety of other topics, Roya, Seeta and a small group of other Afghan women are able to express themselves freely, something women like them cannot always do.

Sunday, May 10, 2009, is International Mother’s Day. While it is a time to honor our own mothers, this day should also remind us of the 500,000 women who die every year from complications due to pregnancy and childbirth, and spur us to take action.

The Pakistani government and 14 United Nations agencies working in Pakistan on Thursday signed a $384.7-million agreement for improvements in the health and population sectors in the country.

Women's eNews reports on the dire situation of pregnant women in Gaza.

The Campaign to End Fistula, led by UNFPA, has just announced that they'll quadruple in size and work in 45 countries (up from 12). There are at least 2 million women in Africa, Asia and the Arab region living with obstetric fistula and 50,000 to 100,000 new cases developing each year.