ICRW Highlights Key Issues for the May 28-30 Women Deliver Conference

On May 28-30, leaders and advocates from 160 countries gathered in Kuala Lumpur for Women Deliver 2013, one of the decades’ largest and most influential conferences on girls’ and women’s health and rights. The event featured talks by some of the world’s leading voices on girls’ and women’s issues, including Melinda Gates, Graça Machel, Cecile Richards, Tewodros Melesse, and three UN agency heads, among many others. Sessions addressed progress and ongoing challenges in maternal health, family planning, education and violence against women, with an overarching focus on why investments in girls and women must remain a global priority in the lead-up to the 2015 Millennium Development Goal deadline and beyond.

In light of this important conference, ICRW researchers Suzanne Petroni, Jennifer McCleary-Sills and Zayid Douglas dug deeper into some of these critical issues in three insightful blogs: 

Charting a Path for Adolescent Reproductive Control highlights the need to understand the demands for reproductive control, as well as the importance of involving youth in the process of ensuring universal access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services. Moving toward this goal requires that we not only address physical barriers, but also the social barriers, to reproductive control.

The Cost of a Woman’s Life delves into the immediate and long-term economic, social, and emotional costs of maternal mortality. Though maternal deaths have been reduced by nearly half since the creation of the Millenium Development Goals, much more work needs to be done. Zayid Douglas talks about the ripple effects that a maternal death in Kenya has on her surviving family, the topic of an ICRW research project underway in the country.

In Adolescent Girls Critical to Post-2015 Agenda, Suzanne Petroni argues that while the UN Women’s proposed standalone goal on gender equality is a good start, it does not go far enough to meet the needs of adolescent girls, end child marriage, and address sexual health and rights. 

ICRW’s Suzanne Petroni also attended the conference and sat on a panel discussing ways to end child marriage. 

Be part of the conversation by following the conference on Twitter using the hashtag #wd2013 or watch the livestream.