The world is about to hit a “turning point” in maternal and newborn health, said Laura Laski, chief of the sexual and reproductive health at UNFPA, at the Wilson Center on March 23. “In terms of strengthening the new health system for achieving the MDGS or any other goals, we have to focus on the human resources for health.” In particular, midwives.

In 2003, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2005 to 2015 to be the decade of “water for life” as a way to encourage countries to reach their water-related targets under the Millennium Development Goals. In summing up the last 10 years, it was noted that water cooperation had been promoted widely, featuring at international fora and in government initiatives and development agendas. Water cooperation is described as having the potential to enable peace and sustainable development. However, just as focusing on “water wars”  might undermine the everyday challenges of securing safe and adequate supplies of water, focusing only on “more cooperation” may well simplify the problem at hand.

In high-income countries, as many as 10 to 15 percent of women experience depression, anxiety, or other non-psychotic mental health challenges during pregnancy or the year after giving birth. In developing countries, the chances rise to 16 percent of pregnant women and 20 percent of post-natal women, according to Jane Fisher, professor of women’s health at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. [Video Below]

Sub-Saharan Africa is often characterized as an outlier in terms of population dynamics and reproductive health. While women are having fewer children around the world, even prompting some places to begin worrying about aging populations, the demographic transition is proceeding more slowly in Africa. Fertility rates in North and Southern Africa have declined to around three children per woman, but the three other sub-regions of the continent – East, Central, and West Africa – retain much higher fertility, between five and six children per woman. Whether, and how quickly, fertility rates decline in these regions over the next few decades will in large part determine the peak of world population. These regions’ demographic trajectories also have important implications for health, governance, food security, economic development, land use, climate vulnerability, and even security.

May 5 was the International Day of the Midwife, an opportunity for the global community to come together to recognize the incredible impact midwives have on maternal and newborn health and decreasing mortality. Want to know more about what global leaders are doing to strengthen midwifery?

Nepal’s devastating earthquake last Saturday was both tragic and expected. On September 18, 2011, as colleagues and I were driving through Kathmandu, our car started to shake, buildings began to sway, store fronts cracked, hundreds of people jumped out of windows and streamed into already crowded streets. It was the so-called Sikkim earthquake. There were only a few fatalities and injuries – it was a very minor event compared to last weekend’s disaster. But it validated the rationale for our visit: to help launch a disaster relief dialogue involving U.S. government experts, Nepalese security forces, and their country’s emergency responders.