Status of Women committee  Thank you very much. Something I feel we didn't talk about enough today was young people, especially young girls. They're half of our planetary population now, and we need to really pay attention and work with them. Did you know that pregnancy complications are the leading caus

Status of Women committee  I'd like to answer, because I have two specific examples. One is Indonesia. In Indonesia in the early 1990s or late 1980s, the imams, on one Saturday morning a month, would give their sermon to the group assembled there. They would talk about the importance of educating girls and

Status of Women committee  I'm sorry, what...?

Status of Women committee  In fact the Guttmacher report--which I'm happy to leave a copy of, if you'd like it--basically says that if you made that investment in family planning, for every $1 you invest, $1.40 is returned to you in terms of health services that are unused because they're unnecessary. It s

Status of Women committee  Quite the contrary. I am so thrilled that the G-8 and G-20 are going to be here, our neighbour, and it's going to be two weeks after the Women Deliver conference. There's a continuum of effort that is happening. It starts with you folks right here, right now. Women Deliver, and t

Status of Women committee  Let's hear the doctor.

Status of Women committee  Disaster--really bad. The International Planned Parenthood Federation has a report that itemizes the people who didn't get services. It wasn't just contraceptive services. It included contraceptive services, but it was prenatal care and emergency obstetric care. It really is a ha

Status of Women committee  The fact is exactly that. Some ingredients in this stew are similar, but the specifics are very local and they need to be. On the other hand, what we now know and what the Women Deliver conference in five weeks is going to talk about in great detail is the variety of solutions th

Status of Women committee  In half a minute, some of your parliamentarians were at a meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, last October. We came out with three priorities. One of them is exactly that when you make a commitment to strengthen the health system, we added a phrase that says “with a positive bias t

Status of Women committee  I'd like to start. You are absolutely right. The statistical information is pretty dreadful. I'm sure you all know that the number of women dying is an approximation. It's not an exact number because in many places women's lives don't count and they aren't counted when they die

Status of Women committee  I'd also like to add that until recently, I'll say three years ago, in particular, the conversation changed from a social justice issue to an economic issue in pointing out that women bring social benefits to families, communities, and economies, but they also bring major economi

Status of Women committee  Some countries are making huge progress and some countries are actually moving backwards. For example, Bangladesh is now on target to meet the goals. This is a dramatic thing. There are two ingredients required. Political will is the bedrock issue. Without the political will--th

Status of Women committee  I was not there this morning, but I really do want to comment on women being the economic heart, particularly in low-resource countries. Did you know that women drive the economic development in virtually all agricultural economies? They operate the majority of small businesses a

Status of Women committee  Yes, well—you bet.

Status of Women committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for inviting me here this afternoon to talk about the fact that women do deliver. They deliver babies, and they die in large numbers. They also deliver a lot of other things. They are major benefits to our social and economic fabric o