“Non-communicable diseases have been the leading cause of death for women for at least the past 30 years but are often underreported and undertreated,” said Priya Kanayson, Policy and Advocacy Manager at NCD Alliance at a recent Wilson Center event on the impact of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on maternal health. The event marked the official launch of the Maternal Health Initiative’s CODE BLUE series, developed in partnership with EMD Serono, a business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Globally, in 2018, 73 percent of deaths among women were due to NCDs, amounting to 18 million women of reproductive age dying per year due to NCDs. The compounding effects of NCDs complicate women’s experiences in many unseen ways, and the rise and gravity of NCDs pose a growing and often overlooked challenge to maternal health worldwide.

The Nairobi Summit on ICPD25 was an opportunity for the global community to re-commit to the unfinished objectives of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development’s (ICPD) Programme of Action and accelerate the progress to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

The Nairobi Summit on ICPD25 came a quarter century after the landmark International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) was held in Cairo in 1994. Pledges made 25 years ago by 179 countries recognized that human rights, including reproductive rights, were fundamental to development and population concerns. A rigorous Programme of Action was created to reduce maternal deaths, ensure access to family planning, and protect women and girls from gender-based violence, including female genital mutilation and child marriage.

 “Family planning saves lives, even in times of crisis,” said Gwen K. Young, Managing Director at the Global Emergency Response Coalition at a Wilson Center event on October 8 on the importance of providing family planning and reproductive health services in humanitarian settings. Speakers from Save the Children, CARE, the International Rescue Committee, and FP2020 spoke to programmatic successes, innovative solutions, and local partnerships in fragile settings. Young highlighted that 1 in 70 people worldwide need humanitarian assistance and a quarter of these are women and girls of reproductive age. All told, more than 30 million women and girls in 42 countries.

Universal health coverage, a sustainable development goal championed by Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), won a key vote of confidence during this year’s United Nations General Assembly in New York City. The member states endorsed primary health care as a means to reach more than 4 billion people who lack essential care—a critical gap to the achievement of universal health coverage by 2030.

The maternal and child health crisis in Washington, D.C. is “a public health crisis that has been hiding in plain sight for 30 years”, said D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser at the second annual Maternal and Infant Health Summit on September 10 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Panelists at this year’s summit discussed issues such as racial disparities in healthcare, proper nutrition and breastfeeding for new and expectant mothers, and support for midwives and doulas in D.C. “The health of a nation is dependent on the health of its women,” said actress and activist, Alyssa Milano.

Each year, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) account for 2 in every 3 deaths among women globally. It is estimated that NCDs kill 35 million people each year, and women of reproductive age make up about half of these deaths. The compounding effects NCDs have on pregnancy complicate women’s experiences in many unseen ways. The rise and gravity of NCDs pose a growing and often overlooked challenge to maternal health worldwide.

In July 2019, more than 100 child sex trafficking victims were rescued across the United States. In 2018, Columbian authorities saved more than 80 Venezuelan women and girls from sex trafficking, and later that year, 40 trafficked Ugandan women were saved in Thailand. These individuals were among the 5 million victims of sex trafficking worldwide.