Thomson Reuters Foundation: Tanzania universities add course in female genital mutilation to fight the practice “Three Tanzanian universities are offering a new course on female genital mutilation (FGM) to train health care professionals how to deal with victims of the harmful practice that is still widespread although illegal. The course,…

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists”: Delivering a new era of reproductive health services Caitlin Mazillin, head of health financing at Marie Stopes International, discusses health service delivery within a universal health care context, and how “[s]ervice delivery organizations need to play their part to put contraception and reproductive…

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists”: Connecting the Dots: Advancing Contraceptive R&D through Partnerships and Knowledge Sharing Laneta Dorflinger, director of contraceptive technology at FHI 360; Kate Rademacher, technical adviser in FHI 360’s global health, population, and nutrition group; and Lucy Wilson, monitoring and evaluation adviser for contraceptive technology…

Huffington Post: It’s Time for President Obama to Listen to Women and Girls Serra Sippel, president of the Center for Health and Gender Equity “…Women in Kenya need access to safe and legal abortion, and [President Obama] should address this during his visit. And when he returns to the U.S.…

Guttmacher Institute: Adolescent Women Need Improved Sexual And Reproductive Health Services “Throughout developing regions, many adolescent women struggle to get the sexual and reproductive health information and services they need, according to a new Guttmacher report that analyzes national health surveys and published research findings from 70 countries across Africa,…

VOA News: Philippines’ Family Planning Law Finds Challenges “A long-awaited reproductive health law in the Catholic-majority Philippines that took effect a year ago is still facing challenges. Health service providers are dealing with a new Supreme Court order curbing some free contraception for the poor…” (Orendain, 8/18).

Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists”: Pakistan: A Tough but Vital Place to Do Family Planning Juan Enrique Garcia, country director of DKT Pakistan, discusses the organization’s efforts to increase the contraceptive prevalence rate for modern methods in Pakistan by overcoming several cultural, social, and logistical challenges (8/6).

Devex: With gender equity comes vasectomy, and vice versa Roy Jacobstein, a senior medical adviser at IntraHealth International “Increasing access to vasectomy isn’t easy or a quick fix in low-income countries, but investing in it is the right thing to do. … Gender norms have a lot to do with…

Devex: Zika response — a chance to address gaps in women’s rights Giselle Carino, regional director for the Western Hemisphere at the International Planned Parenthood Federation “…[T]he [Zika] epidemic has highlighted two key failures of governments in the [Latin America and the Caribbean] region: a lack of investment in sexuality…

U.N. News Centre: Yemen: year of conflict puts 3.4 million women of reproductive age at risk, U.N. reports “A year of conflict in Yemen has left an estimated 3.4 million women of reproductive age between 15 and 49 years in need of humanitarian assistance, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)…