Updates

By: Dr. Shibilu Shamsudeen, Women Deliver 100 Young Leader from United Arab Emirates

This blog is part of a series, edited by Women Deliver, in partnership with Impatient Optimists, on youth perspectives to celebrate World Contraception Day. Share your thoughts in comments and join the conversation at #WCD2012. For more stories and to get involved further visit No Controversy.

In many parts of the Muslim world, the topic of contraception is largely avoided, as is sexual education in general. Further, any discussion related to sexuality, especially to the unmarried, is a taboo. Many countries in the Middle East even have laws against the purchase of oral contraceptive pills. Read more...

By: Cecilia García Ruiz, Women Deliver 100 Young Leader from Mexico

This blog is part of a series, edited by Women Deliver, in partnership with Impatient Optimists, on youth perspectives to celebrate World Contraception Day. Share your thoughts in comments and join the conversation at #WCD2012.

World Contraception Day will be celebrated for the 6th time on September 26, 2012. For six years we’ve worked to shine a spotlight on these key issues, but some people still disregard the importance of providing universal access to quality contraceptive services and information to prevent unplanned pregnancies, especially among young people. Read more...

By: Foluso Ajani; Originally titled "How I Got the Invitation for the Women Deliver Conference (Malaysia 2013)," and posted on MDGs in Africa

...e-terview with Dr. Foluso Ajani, an advocate for maternal and reproductive health rights. She is passionate about efforts to [improve] maternal health. In this short piece, she shares with us how she got the invitation for the Women Deliver Conference in Malaysia and the ‘Refer and Reward Scheme’ she will present at the International Conference.

ACMA: Can we meet you?

Foluso: I am Foluso Ishola (nee Ajani), a highly motivated young Nigerian Medical Doctor, an activist and advocate for women’s sexual and reproductive rights, maternal and child health. Read more...

By: Smita Gaith, Women Deliver

In Ghana, 350,000 women and 57,000 children under five die each year. Access to quality, comprehensive health care could have saved many of these lives.  In response, from 2005 – 2009, the Quality Health Partners project (QHP) was put in place to support efforts that were already under way in Ghana to ensure high quality reproductive and child health services. Read more...

By: Elissa Kennedy; Originally posted on The Conversation

World leaders, international donors, government officials from developing countries and civil society organisations gathered at the London Summit on Family Planning overnight to support the right of women and adolescent girls to freely decide the number and timing of their children.

Leaders from more than 20 developing countries made bold commitments and donors pledged US$2.6 billion over the next eight years to reach 120 million more women and adolescent girls with essential family planning services. Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr showed his support earlier in the week with an editorial in The Lancet and committed to doubling Australia’s aid for family planning to more than $50 million a year by 2016. Read more...

By: Smita Gaith, Women Deliver

In 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) acknowledged that governments should make information and services available to adolescents to increase awareness of adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH), including unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and risks of infertility. According to ICPD, this information should be youth-friendly, and involve multiple stakeholders from diverse sectors, at different levels of government. Read more...

By: Vicky Markham, Center for Environment and Population (CEP); Originally posted on RH Reality Check

The Rio+20 conference is now entering its last days, final negotiations have begun, and tensions are rising as the challenge to our issues is acute. There’ve been demonstrations, heightened advocacy, and frustration:  while we know the issues of “women, reproductive health and environmentally sustainable development” are integrated in the real world (thus essential to achieving the goals of this Earth Summit), coming away with anything less than them being central and overarching in the final Rio+20 document would be a major disappointment, and more. Let’s see what the last days actually bring, things can still change. Soon the Rio+20 outcome document will be finalized and all will be heading home. Read more...

By: Vicky Markham, Center for Environment and Population (CEP); Originally posted on RH Reality Check

This morning I ventured the opposite direction from Rio Centro where the UN Rio+20 negotiations are taking place, and travelled with colleagues to the Cachoeirinha (I was told it means “waterfall”) Favela in Rio de Janeiro. These shantytowns are quite common in Rio, well over one million strong, located within and around the city limits. This particular one has 37,000 residents. Read more...

By: Vicky Markham, Center for Environment and Population (CEP); Originally posted on RH Reality Check

June 18, 2012, From Rio: This week begins the major UN Rio+20 “Earth Summit,” and I’ve just arrived at the sprawling “Rio Centro” complex where the official UN negotiations and many non-governmental organizations’ (NGOs) side-events are taking place.  While here for the duration of the meeting, I’ll be covering women and reproductive health (RH) issues as relate to the official UN proceedings, the NGO perspectives, and global south women’s personal stories on how Rio+20 touches their lives. Read more...

By: Suzanne Ehlers and Michael Brune; Originally posted on GristBy: Suzanne Ehlers and Michael Brune; Originally posted on Grist

The outcome document for this week’s Rio+20 summit is 49 pages long. Some 23,917 words.

Women were mentioned in less than 0.01 percent of the text. And only two of the 283 sections addressed women’s needs for family planning.

At first, this might not seem like a big deal. It’s easy to think of Rio as a purely environmental conference, dealing with issues related to sustainable development and a green economy. It’s easy to say that Rio is not about “women’s issues.” Read more...

Women Deliver is collaborating with Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet project to highlight the important role of women, youth, and sexual and reproductive health and rights in sustainable development at this week’s Rio+20 conference, June 20-22.

Today marked the official start of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as the Rio+20 Summit, during which global leaders will discuss how to reduce poverty while preserving the environment. Discussions will also focus on a future sustainable development framework, known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which could eventually replace the Millennium Development Goals in 2015.

Women Deliver and Worldwatch are following the action in Rio – please visit us for interviews, press statements, and other resources on discussions and activities at the Rio+20 Summit. Read more...