A Good Way to Stop Zika from Harming Latin American Babies: Stop Teen Pregnancy
In response to Latin America’s sudden outbreak of Zika – the insect-borne virus linked to a serious fetal brain defect – some of the region’s countries are telling women to shun pregnancy for months if not years.
We can debate whether that strategy is appropriate. Rights groups, for example, have a point when they say it puts an unfair if not unrealistic onus on women when the focus should be eradicating mosquitoes.
http://wlrn.org/post/good-way-stop-zika-harming-latin-american-babies-stop-teen-pregnancy
Gender-based violence (GBV) remains one of our world’s greatest challenges, impacting one in three womenduring the course of their lifetime. For those displaced or otherwise affected by humanitarian emergencies, therisk and vulnerability to many forms of GBV including sexual violence or exploitation, intimate partner violence, and child marriage increases significantly. While the use of rape as a weapon of war may garner the bulk of public attention, increased risk also results from displacement itself. For displaced women and girlsfulfilling essential needs such as using the latrine, obtaining food and water or collecting fuel may present not only difficulties but danger. These issues are compounded by the breakdown in family and community support structures and services, as well as the often weak infrastructure and lack of privacy and protections available in camps or other settlements for displaced people.
http://feministing.com/2015/12/14/addressing-gbv-is-the-responsibility-of-everyone-in-the-humanitarian-community/
Shilpi, 25, has two young daughters and wants to wait at least five years before she tries for a son. She uses birth control pills, which she gets alternately from her accredited social health activist (ASHA), a community health worker in her rural village in the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, or from the local community health center. But the ASHA doesn’t always have the pills, the community health center is 6 miles away, and Shilpi doesn’t have a car. Supply limits mean neither the ASHA nor the community health center are able to give her more than a month’s supply of pills at a time, so at the end of every month, Shilpi tries the ASHA, then maybe the health center, then maybe each of them again, as she hustles to refill her contraception.
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a49528/iud-access-in-india/
On Friday, the UN released its list of sustainability goals for the next 15 years, and achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls was number five on the list. According to experts like Allison Doody, an international advocacy associate, there’s no way we can do that without access to safe abortions.
On Friday, the UN released its list of sustainability goals (SDGs) for the next 15 years, and achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls was number five on the list. Of the 16 other interrelated goals, issues around climate change featured prominently. As the regional director of Planned Parenthood, Carmen Barroso, urged in her New York Times op-ed, one way to combat gender inequality along with promoting environmental sustainability is to support women’s right to abortion and contraception. This year, a report by the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health concluded that improving access to family planning services is the most cost-effective way to address population growth, food insecurity, and climate change. The report estimated that a $9.4 billion annual investment in reproductive health would prevent 52 million unintended pregnancies every year and provide 16 to 29 percent of the needed emissions reductions to slow global climate change. And while the ancillary environmental effects are great, we can’t forget that there are 225 million women in the world who want to use contraception but don’t have access.
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/reuse-reduce-reproductive-rights-how-abortion-can-help-save-the-planet
The Helms Amendment stipulates that US foreign aid can’t support abortion “as a method of family planning.” But it’s been interpreted as a total ban on abortion—including in cases of rape and threat to the mother’s life.
Monica Oguttu is the CEO of KMET, a Kenya-based organization that works to ensure that underserved communities can access quality reproductive health care services. When rape victims come to KMET clinics in need of assistance, the providers there provide them with numerous resources: emergency contraception, post-exposure prophylactics, and counseling. But if a patient returns later saying she’s pregnant, there’s nothing Monica or her colleagues can do.
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/how-the-united-states-is-hurting-rape-victims-around-the-world
As aid groups search for ways to keep countries accountable for the ambitious sustainable development goals, some are pointing to existing mechanisms, like cost implementation plans, to guide aid budgets and track country progress.
https://www.devex.com/news/can-a-tool-to-map-aid-budgets-be-used-to-keep-tabs-on-the-sdgs-86711
Yesterday was International Youth Day, and governments, donors, and public health professionals are paying more attention to the unique needs of the world’s young people and the importance of their civic engagement and participation. Unfortunately, most young people do not have access to basic sexual and reproductive health care and information. This not only undermines their health and wellbeing, but significantly affects their abilities to stay in school and participate in their communities.
John H. Gibbons, a physicist who was the chief White House science adviser to President Bill Clinton and who was a leading authority on using science to conserve energy, died July 17 at a retirement facility in Crozet, Va. He was 86.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/john-h-gibbons-science-adviser-to-congress-and-clinton-dies-at-86/2015/07/30/65286c82-316b-11e5-8f36-18d1d501920d_story.html
In April, Gayle Smith was nominated by U.S. President Barack Obama to serve as the next administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the world’s largest bilateral development agency. But she must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate before taking on the role, and sources close to the process tell Devex that Smith’s confirmation is in trouble.
https://www.devex.com/news/gayle-smith-s-bid-to-run-usaid-hits-a-snag-86515
Just as it seemed the Global Financing Facility (GFF) for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health might fade into obscurity, Canada, Japan, the U.S., and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have stepped in with $214 million in new commitments. They were made during the official high-level launch of the GFF in Addis Ababa, alongside the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD3). These new commitments bring the GFF’s resource envelope from $800 million to $1.14 billion. Not only do the new pledges bring the GFF closer to its goal of raising US$2.6 billion by 2020, they send an important signal that the GFF is a viable funding mechanism.
http://healthreporters.info/2015/07/16/global-financing-facility-gets-lifeline-in-addis/
Two hundred and fourteen of the 234 girls rescued from Boko Haram this week are pregnant. Ripped from school and forced into early motherhood, the girls’ plight is a stark and painful reminder of the immediate and long-term consequences of violating women’s human — and sexual and reproductive — rights.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzanne-ehlers/what-boko-haram-can-teach-us-about-the-sustainable-development-goals_b_7251620.html
Despite the government’s efforts to improve water management through advanced technology, South Korea faces severe water shortage problems.
The U.S.-based Population Action International lists Korea as a water-stressed country, with water availability per capita at 1,472 cubic meters in 1995, and projected to be 1,327 cubic meters by 2025. Countries with a yearly water supply of 1,000 to 2,000 cubic meters per person are considered water-stressed.
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20150413000960