International Day of Action for Women’s Health - May 28, 2010
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A mother holds her newborn baby at a hygienic health care center in India.
Source: AFIAP/Photoshare |
For more than 20 years, the International Day of Action for Women’s Health has allowed the world to look at women’s unique health needs in a new way. On this day, women are celebrated for their contributions to all areas of society, and recognized as the cornerstones of strong families and communities. A focused attention on their health needs is vital to ensure sustainable progress across all areas of development.
USAID has long recognized that women and girls represent a tremendous untapped resource in the developing world, and has proven that health programs targeting women work. With decades of experience in this field, USAID is uniquely positioned to play a leading role in the implementation of President Obama’s visionary Global Health Initiative, which calls for an even greater focus on a women-centered approach to health programming.
Family Planning: Saves Lives, Improves Health, Empowers Women
Since 1965, the Agency has provided women and couples with voluntary family planning programs and services that allow families to better feed, clothe, educate, and provide health care for their children. With family planning programs and related health services in more than 60 developing countries, USAID reaches more than 27 million women to help them achieve their reproductive health needs.
The widespread adoption of family planning is one of the most dramatic changes of the 20th century, providing women and couples throughout the world with the ability to determine the size and spacing of their families. For more than 40 years, the U.S. Government, primarily delivered through USAID, has been in the vanguard of programs that have increased use of modern contraceptives in the developing world. Between 1965 and 2005, the number of women of reproductive age in the developing world using family planning has risen from less than 10 percent to 53 percent or, in actual numbers, from 30 million users to 430 million in 2008. The result has been a significant decline in the average number of children born to each woman, from more than six to just over three.
Why Family Planning?
Affording women the opportunity to plan their families saves the lives of mothers and children, reduces abortion rates, and is important in the fight against HIV transmission, particularly in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission.
Related Reproductive Health Programs Protect Women’s Health
Family Planning Prevents Abortion
The primary reason for abortions is unintended pregnancy. If every woman had access to family planning services and commodities, the number of unintended pregnancies – and thus abortions – would decrease.
Fistula Prevention
Because fistula occurs disproportionately in girls under 15 years of age, USAID works to reduce adolescent pregnancies by promoting later marriages and expanding access to family planning services. USAID also supports fistula repair centers in 12 countries in Africa and Asia.
Gender Issues
In many societies around the world, women have unequal control over key household resources, access to information, and authority to make decisions regarding their health and well-being. Gender inequities and rigid gender norms, often steeped in culture and tradition, may exacerbate women’s risk of poor health, including contracting HIV/AIDS or experiencing unintended pregnancy and violence.
Postabortion Care (PAC)
PAC programs address women’s needs through emergency treatment for complications of spontaneous or induced abortion; family planning counseling and service provision; and sexually transmitted infection (including HIV) evaluation, treatment, and counseling.
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