Category: FP2030 Updates

After three years of intense advocacy, women and children’s health is poised to claim a central role in the new post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda. The proposed outcome document of the SDG Summit, Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, was published this week. It includes a broad range of targets relating… Continue reading Healthy women and children at the centre of the Sustainable Development Goals

Today, more Mozambicans are using mobile phones than ever before. What if we could use these phones to share accurate, clear information about sexual health contraceptives with youth? Could we deliver this information in a creative way that fosters reflection and dialogue, ensuring young people have full and informed choice? Yes. Here’s proof.

Rahinatu is 18 years old and works in one of Accra’s busiest markets. She has travelled down to Accra from Northern Ghana to work as a kayayei (market porter), hoping to save enough money to buy the household goods and utensils she’ll need before she can get married.  She has worked in the markets for six months, but life as a kayayei is desperately hard. Women and girls like Rahinatu sleep rough in market stall doorways or in abandoned boxes, and are highly vulnerable to sexual harassment and rape.

By: John Townsend, Population Council Providing a range of safe and effective contraceptive methods that enable women to plan their families promotes gender equality and female empowerment.  But if manufacturers and designers don’t take women’s preferences and life contexts into account, a new product could fail to meet their needs and end up as a… Continue reading Acceptability: Listening to What Women Want

By Moazzam Ali, Regional Manager for Asia and Pacific Regions at the Department of Reproductive Health and Research, World Health Organization, and Jean José Nzau Mvuezolo, Senior Regional Advisor/SAF PAC Initiative, CARE USA  What keeps women from accessing family planning services? In Pakistan, as in many low-income countries, one of the obstacles is cost. Pakistan’s state-run… Continue reading Accessibility: Breaking Down the Barriers between Women and Family Planning

A 2011 public health survey in Senegal revealed a startling discrepancy:  43 percent of married Senegalese women told researchers that they wanted to avoid or postpone pregnancy.  Yet only 12 percent of women were actually using contraception.