Humanosphere: Visualizing cervical cancer: Leading killer of African women Amy VanderZanden, communications data specialist at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), examines efforts to prevent, diagnose, and treat cervical cancer in sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease is the leading cause of cancer death for women…

Huffington Post: Pregnant Women World-Wide Need Timely Access to Supplements Marion Roche, technical adviser at Micronutrient Initiative “…There are many questions to explore as to how to best reach pregnant women for their health and for their newborns. Could [multiple micronutrient supplements (MMS)] be part of the global solution? Given…

U.N. News Centre: Security Council condemns use of sexual violence as ‘tactic of war’ in Iraq and Syria “The United Nations Security Council [on Friday] condemned the use of sexual violence, in particular sexual enslavement and sexual violence ‘related to or resulting from forced marriage, committee, including as a tactic…

Huffington Post: Access to Maternal Health Saved My Life and My Son’s Elizabeth Gore, entrepreneur in residence at Dell “…With simple technological solutions like RapidSMS and We Care Solar kits and programs like Girl Up, if the U.N. keeps this momentum going, I’m confident that they will meet their goal…

Huffington Post: Ending Maternal and Child Deaths in Kenya — The Private Sector Can Help Siddharth Chatterjee, UNFPA representative to Kenya, and Nicholas Muraguri, director of medical services at Kenya’s Ministry of Health “…The private sector has the resources, rigor, expertise, and innovative spirit needed to create new and more-effective…

U.N. News Centre: No country has yet achieved equality between men and women — U.N. human rights chief “The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said [Tuesday] that no country to date has achieved full equality between the sexes and urged the 47 members of the Human Rights Council…

New York Times: I Stepped Out of My Comfort Zone and Made a Difference Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation “…I’m a practicing Catholic who grew up in Dallas and went to Catholic high school. I cherish quiet time and I’ve never loved being in the…

Agence France-Presse/The Guardian: Philippines axes contraceptive budget “The legislature in the mainly Catholic Philippines has axed the government’s budget for contraceptives, despite a law mandating that the state should provide them to the poor. The health secretary, Janette Garin, confirmed on Wednesday that the department’s 2016 budget for contraceptives had…

IntraHealth International’s “Vital”: Seven Tactics that Are Leading Francophone West Africa toward a Contraceptive Revolution Sara Stratton, assistant program director at IntraHealth International, discusses the work and achievements of the Ouagadougou Partnership, which includes nine West African countries and aims to promote family planning and modern contraceptive use for women. Stratton…

Thomson Reuters Foundation: U.S. girls, women at risk of genital mutilation has tripled: study “More than half a million women and girls in the United States live at risk of female genital mutilation, a threefold increase in recent years due to the rise in immigrants from countries where it is…