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Saturday, April 20, 2024
News and Views from the Global South
Maternal Mortality
India Needs to “Save its Daughters” Through Education and Gender Equality
Women constitute nearly half of the country's 1.25 billion people and gender equality -- whether in politics, economics, education or health -- is still a distant dream for most. This fact was driven home again sharply by the recently released United National Development Programme’s Human Development Report (HDR) 2015 which ranks India at a lowly 130 out of 155 countries in the Gender Inequality Index (GII). India trails behind most Asian countries, including lesser developed Bangladesh and Pakistan which rank 111 and 121 respectively, and fares not much ahead of war-ravaged Afghanistan at 152.
Opinion: From Despair to Hope – Fulfilling a Promise to Mothers and Children in Mandera County
Mandera in northeastern Kenya, has often been described as “the worst place on earth to give birth.” Mandera’s maternal mortality ratio stands at 3,795 deaths per 100,000 live births, almost double that of wartime Sierra Leone at 2,000 deaths per 100,000 live births.
Inequality Blocks Further Reduction in Child Mortality in Latin America
The progress that Latin America has made in reducing child mortality is cited by international institutions as an example to be followed, and the region has met the fourth Millennium Development Goal, which is to cut the under-five mortality rate by two thirds.
Saving the Lives of Cameroonian Mothers and their Babies with an SMS
“You can’t measure the joy in my heart,” Marceline Duba, from Lagdo in Cameroon’s Far North Region, tells IPS as she holds her grandson in her arms.
Against All the Odds: Maternity and Mortality in Afghanistan
Nasrin Mohamadi, a mother of four, has promised herself never to set foot in an Afghan public hospital again. After her first experience in a maternity ward, she has lost all faith in the state’s healthcare system.
Looking to Africa’s LDCs to Learn How to Save the Lives of Millions of Mothers and their Babies
Every year, three million newborn babies and almost 6.6 million children under five die globally, but if the rest of the world looked towards the examples of two of Africa's least-developed countries (LDCs), Rwanda and Ethiopia, they would perhaps be able to save these children.
Obstetric Fistula Haunts Pakistani Women
The word on the street was that if there were one place on earth that could treat Mohammad Lalu’s wife, it would be the Koohi Goth Women’s Hospital in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi.
OP-ED: Latin America Lags on Reproductive Rights
In the last decade, several countries in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region have had the opportunity to experience economic growth and establish redistributive fiscal policies aimed at reducing poverty, reducing inequality and improving the coverage and quality of health, education and social protection services.
Kenya’s Mothers Shun Free Maternity Health Care
It has been a month since the Kenyan government waived the maternity fee at public health facilities, but Millicent Awino is still one of the many expectant mothers in favour of a home birth.
Working to Save Malawi’s Mothers
Charity Salima, 54, has helped to deliver over 4,000 babies in her maternity clinic in Area 23 – one of Malawi’s poorest and most populous townships – and has yet to record a single pregnancy-related death.
OP-ED: Put a Spotlight on African Women’s Reproductive Rights
Victoria J. married in 2009 at age 14, and became pregnant shortly after. “I started labour in the morning on a Friday …. The nurse kept checking and saying I would deliver safely. On Monday she said I was weak.
Skilled Midwives May be the Key to Healthy Babies
The story goes like this: a young mother lies quietly in a dimly lit room having just given birth to her baby. For the next seven days she watches over the child with caution, nursing and swaddling it patiently. Fearful that the infant will not survive past a few days, she refuses to give it a name.
No Woman Should Die Giving Life
Every single day, 452 women in sub-Saharan Africa die from pregnancy-related causes; that’s 18 women every hour.
New Drugs Underused in Averting Maternal Deaths
In most developing countries, where a woman gives birth still determines whether she lives or dies, despite the availability of inexpensive new medication that is proven to save lives.
‘Misoprostol – Must for Reducing Maternal Mortality’
“I can’t imagine life without misoprostol,” says Dr. Azra Ahsan, a gynaecologist and obstetrician who has, for more than a decade, been using the controversial drug to stop women from bleeding to death after delivery.
Operating in Rural Tanzania “To Save a Life”
At the Kakonko Health Centre, about 250 kilometres from the nearest hospital in Kigoma Region, Western Tanzania, assistant medical officer Abdu Mapinduzi prepares to operate on Joanitha, a young pregnant mother.Laos’s Rural Women Await Midwives
A year after the Laotian government launched a safe pregnancy programme news of this initiative, involving the dispatch of teams of midwives across the country, is yet to reach women in the remote communities.
South Sudan’s Women Await Independence From Poverty
One year after the formation of South Sudan, the country’s women say that independence has not resulted in the positive political, economic and social changes that they had hoped for.South Africa’s National Health Insurance Sites Underfunded
Experts say that underfunded pilot universal healthcare sites to be set up by South Africa as part of its proposed national health insurance may be doomed to fail as debate rages about how the move to more equitable healthcare will be funded.
Climate Change and Family Planning – Twin Issues for LDCs
The reproductive rights agenda, from improving women’s access to education to systematic family planning to reducing birth rates and combating poverty, has become a cornerstone of most industrialised nations’ development policies toward the least developed countries (LDCs), comprised primarily of sub-Saharan African states.
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