Updates

By: Janna Oberdorf, Director of Communications and Outreach for Women Deliver

Today, May 5th, is International Day of the Midwife. The world needs midwives now more than ever. The World Health Organization, UN agencies and other global partners have identified that midwives are key to achieving reductions in maternal and newborn deaths and disabilities globally, yet there is a serious shortage. Read more... and get inspired by three midwives honored on the Women Deliver 100 list of the most inspiring people delivering for girls and women, below.

Juliette Coulibaly, Côte d'Ivoire / Imtiaz Kamal, Pakistan / Dorothy Ngoma, Malawi

By: Janna Oberdorf, Director of Communications and Outreach at Women Deliver

About a year ago, at the Women Deliver 2010 conference in Washington, DC, I watched Christy Turlington Burns’ directorial debut, “No Woman, No Cry.” In our huge conference hall, between intense conversations on funding streams and health strengthening solutions, this movie made an impact. It told the stories behind the stats, and it gave a face to the 358,000 women and girls who die during pregnancy and childbirth each year. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

Recently released results from a one-year family planning project in Albania show that peer education and a media campaign—including TV and radio ads—about the benefits of modern contraceptive methods were associated with increased awareness, better attitudes, and greater use. Read more...

By: Conrad Person, Director, Corporate Contributions, Johnson & Johnson

Today, the world marks World Health Day with ambitious goals for advancing the wellbeing of all people – with a special focus on women and children, whose fates are inextricably linked to overcoming poverty through the Millennium Development Goals. It is a time to celebrate how much progress we have made on issues like clean water and safe birth, but also a chance to reflect on the staggering gaps in health resources for women that still exist between developed and developing countries, and how we can address them. Read more...

By: Chally Kacelnik; originally posted in Feministe

Last month, Women Deliver – a fantastic organisation dedicated to improving women’s and girls’ health and wellbeing globally – released the Women Deliver 100. It’s a list of inspiring people, well, delivering for girls and women in all kinds of areas: health, politics, the media, and so on. Out of all those people, there was one I very badly wanted to interview, and her name is Imane Khachani. She’s a twenty-nine year old doctor from Morocco, and she’s one of those people who seem to get as much life and amazing activism into as little time as possible. She was a Special Youth Fellow at the United Nations’ Fund for Population, among other work with the UN, and has collaborated with the Department for Gender, Women and Health at WHO, not to mention Oxfam. Taking a particular interest in HIV/AIDS, she’s worked on sexual and reproductive health programs for young people at home and regionally, and has put together guides for addressing these needs in humanitarian settings. She’s just kind of jaw-droppingly amazing, if you will well know if you caught the video I posted recently. Click through to read the interview with Imane Khachani...

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

Because of high healthcare costs, the poorest women in Kenya often do not have access to maternity care at any point during their pregnancies. On average, a Kenyan woman without health insurance must pay almost $350 USD in order to deliver in a private health facility -- the equivalent of what some Kenyans earn in one year’s salary. Since 2005, the Government of Kenya and the German Development Bank (KfW) have been trying to reduce these cost burdens for poor women with the Output-Based Aid (OBA) Voucher Program. Read more...

A 9.0 magnitude earthquake, which is the largest to hit Japan since records began, hit the north-east of the country on 11 March 2011. It was followed by a series of strong aftershocks, and also triggered a massive tsunami, which has destroyed most of the cities and villages on the north-east coast of Japan. During periods following a major natural disaster, women often lose access to basic health services, as public health and clinical care infrastructure are disrupted. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

New maternal health care services are bringing hope-and survival- to the women of Georgia. For 69 years, they suffered under a Soviet medical system with inefficient hospitals and clinics, poor geographical distribution of health facilities, and rampant financial instability. Healthcare for pregnant women and their families was no better, leaving women with a 1 in 1,300 risk of maternal death over their lifetimes and lack of access to low cost family planning methods. Since the country declared independence in 1991, it has been gradually bolstering the health system with the hope of providing all citizens with the services they deserve. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern

Nearly a decade after being launched, a program that sends mobile health units down some of Bolivia’s most remote roads is continuing to deliver much-needed basic reproductive and maternal health care to thousands of indigenous girls and women. Because most indigenous girls and women are unable to travel to cities to receive the reproductive care they need, the International Planned Parenthood Federation—Western Hemisphere and Bolivia-based Center for Investigative and Educational Services’ (CIES) Sexual and Reproductive Health Clinic use these mobile health units to bring maternal health care to women who are the hardest to reach. Read more...

By: Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund

This year, world population will hit 7 billion. With this major milestone occurring in my first year as Executive Director of UNFPA, I have an interesting and unique opportunity in leading the organization’s priorities.

One major focus will be today’s large generation of young people. There are an estimated 1.8 billion adolescents and youth aged 10 to 24, accounting for nearly a quarter of the planet's population. Just below 90 per cent of them live in developing countries and that proportion will increase during the next 20 years. They want freedom, participation and dignity and their decisions will define the future. Read more...

By: Sharon D’Agostino, Vice President, Worldwide Corporate Contributions and Community Relations, Johnson & Johnson

My heart is different this Valentine’s Day, a day when many celebrate love. It has been touched by individuals transforming the world by caring for girls and women who, for many reasons, feel neglected and unloved. Writing Valentine notes over the past several days to people I love, my mind followed a path back to the work that my team and I are privileged to do at Johnson & Johnson, work with community-based partners dedicated to saving and improving the lives of women and children. 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...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

In Guatemala, young indigenous girls living in rural areas often do not have a chance to go to school. Instead, they help their families, living in social isolation and sometimes chronic poverty. They often marry young and have many children – the country’s fertility rates are among the highest in Latin America, with each woman bearing an average of 4.4 children over her lifetime. These indigenous girls have limited access to basic services such as water, sanitation, passable roads, and health care. To help break the cycle and enable these girls to reach their full potential, the Population Council, in collaboration with other partners, launched a program called Abriendo Oportunidades (Creating Opportunities) in 2004. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

The Southeast Asian country of Cambodia borders the South China Sea and is surrounded by Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. The maternal mortality ratio in 2008 was 290 deaths per 100,000 live births, but has been show to be as high as 493 deaths per 100,000 live births in rural areas.  Over the last decade, the Cambodian government has increased the availability of reproductive health services, but there is still great need for services among expecting mothers in rural areas. A national program is working to narrow the gaps in care, decrease the urban-rural disparities, and educate community-based health workers to provide lifesaving maternal care. Read more...