News

As the world tunes in for Women Deliver 2013, the UNFPA and global leaders emphasize the importance of meeting the tremendous unmet need for contraception.

Community-oriented work to change social norms around gender and enabling social and economic policies are essential to prevent early marriage, to keep girls in school, and to help women to space their births and give birth safely, when they want to bear children, said Purnima Mane, who heads Pathfinder International.

Purnima Mane advocates for increased family planning funding and identifies political will and a focus on community-based work as two of the most important factors in our efforts to advance the status of women and girls around the world.

Asked how best the contraceptive needs could be met, Dr. Purnima Mane, president and chief executive officer of Pathfinder International, told IPS the United Nations and the international community need to continue advocating for increased funding – domestic and international – for access to contraception and for the integration of family planning into universal health coverage in all possible forums and through broader partnerships across sectors.

Pathfinder is pleased to announce a new three-year grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in support of crucial work in West Africa targeting the unmet need for contraception among young married adolescents in Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Niger.

This Q&A with Pathfinder's Strengthening Communities Through Integrated Programming (SCIP) discusses our unique approach to providing reproductive health care in Mozambique's Nampula Province as well as successes and challenges associated with the project.

The Governor of Nampula province has welcomed the SCIP team with enthusiasm, highlighting the tremendous potential of the project to improve health conditions in communities across the 14 focus districts. He committed to “opening the doors” with key administrators and directed SCIP to work with the Unit of Coordination for Nampula Development, which coordinates between civil society partners in the province.

Pathfinder's Emeritus Advisor Judy Kahrl and Major Gift Officer Leila Percy discuss the importance of family planning in light of the Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights' recent lobbying trip to the Maine state capital.

“So many young women today don't have an idea what struggles our generation fought to secure reproductive rights,” said Judy Kahrl of Arrowsic, the founder of GRR. "Access to family planning is incredibly important. By ensuring that women and men up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level have access to effective and affordable family planning services we can save the state money by lowering the unintended pregnancy rate."

This week, MSD, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and other global health leaders announced a new public-private partnership that will increase access to contraceptive implants in some of the world’s poorest countries.

First published in The Daily Monitor, this news article discusses the gains made by Pathfinder's Integrated Family Health Program in Ethiopia and the pivotal role the project plays in achieving Millennium Development Goals.

The Technical Advisory Committee of the Integrated Family Health Program (IFHP) commended the gains achieved by the program in the North Gondar Zone of the Amahara Regional State. It also said that IFHP assumes pivotal role in achieving Millennium Development Goals of reducing child mortality rates and improving maternal health.

Pathfinder is pleased to announce that our “No Joke. Choice Matters” video won the 2013 DoGooder “Funny for Good” Video Award today.

Continuing the Administration’s robust investment in the health and rights of girls and women, President Obama's budget includes increases for family planning and reproductive health programs, as well as maternal and child health.

Thanks to an new partnership led by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bayer HealthCare AG and other leaders in global health, millions of women will soon have greater access to a long-acting reversible contraception method called Jadelle.

Speakers at a seminar organized by Pathfinder International say political will is necessary to address the unmet need for family planning and other women's health services in Pakistan

Investing in women’s health not only improves her life, but the quality of life of her family, community and eventually her country. More than half of the world’s unpaid labour comes from women, therefore, their contribution needs to be recognised.

Experts from Pathfinder International and the Marie Stopes Society emphasize the importance of family planning and birth spacing as a part of reducing the maternal mortality rate in Pakistan.

“Couples continue to suffer due to lack of awareness of modern family planning methods. Six percent of mothers of all ages die due to unsafe abortions. Keeping these facts in mind, the event focused on having a discussion on what should be done to address and eventually eradicate these maladies."

The State of the World Population 2012 report emphasizes a bold principle that Pathfinder has incorporated in its works for decades—that family planning is an intrinsic human right.

On November 13, 2012, Pathfinder International, Ibis Reproductive Health, MSH, JSI, and the Women and Health Initiative of the Harvard School of Public Health, will host a special event: The London Summit on Family Planning: Where do we go from here?

New innovative partnerships with the private sector are key to meeting the UN's millennium development goals

"In the four minutes I have to speak, two or three women will have died in childbirth." With this stark observation, Purnima Mane, chief executive of health NGO, Pathfinder International, reminded an audience of more than 100 company executives, ministers and global health leaders why they were gathered together.

Today at the Family Planning Summit, Pathfinder International’s president, Purnima Mane, announced that Pathfinder will commit an additional $3 million by 2014 to its already robust family planning related programs.

One in every 89 Pakistani women will die of childbirth-related causes compared to 1 in 8,000 in the developed world.

“We have committed a lot but funding support toward the achievement of these is quite insufficient. With this pace of growth and lack of family planning policy it is difficult for Pakistan to achieve the targets by 2015, rather it would require the next 10 years to do achieve these goals,” Tauseef Ahmed, Pathfinder's Pakistan Country Representative, said.

Today’s landmark Family Planning Summit hailed the right of every woman to choose if, when and how often to bear children and marked a return of world attention to an essential human right and the core of Pathfinder’s work: access to contraception.

On July 11, the UK Government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with UNFPA and other partners, will hold a groundbreaking Family Planning Summit in London.

Today the World Health Organization released their much-anticipated recommendations on hormonal contraceptives and HIV. Pathfinder was pleased to participate in the consultation and supports WHO's position.