Every Partner Counts: UNFPA

UNFPA is another incredible partner who advised us throughout the filming of “No Woman, No Cry.” No matter which country we were researching, they had a presence there and were eager to help with research, data, locating facilities and health workers as well as strong ties to grassroots advocacy organizations. In Bangladesh we visited and filmed at their fistula hospital at Dhaka Medical College Hospital in 2009 and returned in 2011 to check in again. We created an educational module on “Obstetric Fistula” which featured their program at Dhaka Medical College to help women who suffered from fistula get back on their feet. This past year the film was featured in LUNAFEST and continues to travel the country as part of an amazing collection of short films “by, for and about women” that are raising money for local organizations.

Every Mother Counts visiting UNFPA’s programs in Bangladesh 2010

A few words from UNFPA:

Reproductive health encompasses key areas of the UNFPA vision, which is to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.

Achieving this vision will change the lives of millions of women, men and young people all over the world. Yet, support for these efforts is shrinking at a critical time, when world population has surpassed 7 billion, and with close to 2 billion young people entering their reproductive years. 

Access to voluntary family planning alone can reduce unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and maternal deaths and disabilities—and save the lives of millions of women and their children. Such access would also enable women to enjoy planned pregnancies, which increase the mothers’ chances of surviving childbirth.

Some 215 million women in the developing world want family planning but cannot get it—resulting in 82 per cent of all unintended pregnancies. Closing this gap is critical for realizing the reproductive rights of millions of women, and for achieving the Millennium Development Goals and the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development.

Fully meeting women’s needs for family planning and maternal and newborn care in developing countries would result in major immediate health benefits. Unintended pregnancies would drop by two-thirds, from 75 million to 22 million annually. More than 100,000 lives would be saved annually among women—a 75 per cent decline in maternal deaths— and 1.5 million among newborns, cutting their deaths by more than half.However, support for family planning has steadily decreased in recent years.

That’s why UNFPA will be highlighting the importance of family planning during this year’s World Population Day, July 11, a month from now. Joining efforts with governments and institutions around the globe, the Fund will stress the message that availability of affordable life-saving medicines, contraceptives and other essential health supplies is a vital part of well-functioning health systems that can serve people in an equitable manner—an imperative that needs more support, both political and financial.

Together with UNFPA, Every Mother Counts will continue to advocate for increased awareness of reproductive health facts, including family planning, and to involve individuals and decision makers around the world in making universal access to family planning supplies for all women a reality.

Stills from when filming in the fistula ward at Dhaka Medical College in 2009