Center for Global Development’s “Global Health Policy Blog/U.S. Development Policy”: Global Family Planning Funding — What Should Funders Be Thinking About Now? Rachel Silverman, senior policy analyst at CGD, discusses donor funding for family planning, examining how potential U.S. funding cuts could affect global family planning efforts and suggesting questions…

Yahoo Beauty: What ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State Could Mean for Women “ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson has garnered criticism for his close relationship with the Russian government since it was reported that he was President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state. But it isn’t only Tillerson’s…

Devex: New WHO guidelines signal greater focus on antenatal care experience “…In the [new WHO antenatal care] guidelines released in November, the WHO now recommends eight contacts with health services instead of four over the course of a woman’s pregnancy. This shift provides more opportunity for women to meet with…

Washington Post: They banished their 15-year-old for having her period. She died in a cold Nepali hut. “A 15-year-old Nepali girl died over the weekend in a hut to which she had been banished for menstruating — the latest victim of an ancient ritual that persists in parts of south…

Foreign Policy: All Rex Tillerson Cares About Is Energy Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations “…If confirmed as secretary of state, [ExxonMobil CEO Rex] Tillerson will find his corporate rhetoric about health, welfare, poverty, and greenhouse gases put to the test. And that…

Inside Philanthropy: What Has Gates Done Lately on Global Family Planning? Big Things, With a Big Partner Sue-Lynn Moses, global editor of Inside Philanthropy, discusses the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s support of DKT International to help the organization “provide contraceptives to at least 11 new countries designated as critical…

Agence France-Presse: Family planning for ‘healthier, wealthier’ Africa: Melinda Gates “Family planning helps people in Africa to be healthier and wealthier, as women without contraceptives become locked in ‘a cycle of poverty,’ Melinda Gates told AFP as a conference on the topic was held in Ivory Coast…” (Fort, 12/14).

Thomson Reuters Foundation: Tanzania cracks down on secret ceremonies to circumcise teenage girls “…Mary Wandia, program manager for London-based charity Equality Now, said the law against FGM is poorly enforced in Tanzania, putting thousands of girls at risk and encouraging others from neighboring countries to travel there. … Police in…

Huffington Post: It’s time to stop violence against women and girls Flavia Bustreo, assistant director general for Family, Women’s, and Children’s Health at the WHO, and vice chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance “…Violence against women and girls affects their physical, mental, sexual, and reproductive health in…

Daily News: Public, private partnership critical to meet demand for contraceptives “…In Tanzania, 25 percent of the sexually active unmarried women aged between 15 and 49 years have unmet need for family planning, while 22 percent of married women have an unmet need for family planning, according to the Demographic…