Reproductive Health Care
in Developing Countries

In "Pursuing the Dream: AIDSfreeAFRICA" Westchester resident Dr. Rolande Hodel joins Future Choices in April 2010 to recount her journey to launch a new industry in sub-Saharan Africa: the first African-owned and -operated prescription drug production facilities. Determined to do something truly significant with her newly earned PhD in chemistry, she established an NGO called AIDSfreeAFRICA, and set off for Africa to figure out how "to empower Africans to be come self-sufficient in producing pharmaceuticals." Dr. Hodel's narrative of the amazing achievements of this fledgling enterprise offers a possible blueprint for real development in impoverished countries.

Go HERE to view video of "Pursuing the Dream: AIDSfreeAFRICA."

Dramatic reduction of maternal deaths is within reach

Guttmacher Institute and UNFPA Release New Study
December 3, 2009

Targeted Investments Can Also Radically Reduce Unintended Pregnancies and Unsafe Abortion and Lower Poverty Levels

London, 3 December, 2009 – Maternal deaths in developing countries could be slashed by 70% and newborn deaths cut nearly in half if the world doubled investment in family planning and pregnancy-related care, shows a new report by the Guttmacher Institute and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. Currently, more than half a million maternal deaths and 3.5 million newborn deaths, many of them easily preventable, occur each year in developing countries.

The new report, Adding It Up: The Costs and Benefits of Investing in Family Planning and Maternal and Newborn Health, also found that investments in family planning boost the overall effectiveness of every dollar spent on the provision of pregnancy-related and newborn health care. Simultaneously investing in both family planning and maternal and newborn services can achieve the same dramatic outcomes for $1.5 billion less than investing in maternal and newborn health services alone. |MORE

All Adding It Up materials are available at http://www.guttmacher.org and http://www.unfpa.org.

Did you know that married women in much of the developing world are increasingly more likely to become infected with HIV than their single peers? The New Video from PAI Sheds Light on Married Women Living with HIV/AIDS. See it here