From the parents on whom you depended in the first days after you were born, to the nurses who’ll likely become an ever more frequent fixture of your final years, care — and caregivers — are integral to all of our lives.

“The Guttmacher-Lancet Commission could not come at a better time,” said Patricia Da Silva, Associate Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation United Nations Liaison Office. “It is indeed the call to action that is required; showing us that comprehensive sexual and reproductive rights must be ensured for all.” She spoke at a recent Wilson Center event on the work of the Guttmacher-Lancet Commission on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). The Commission, an international collaboration of 16 SRHR experts from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America, recently published a report, Accelerate Progress—Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All, which makes concrete recommendations for countries to address SRHR gaps and inequalities.

Whether it’s thanks to shouldering the majority of unpaid care work, or facing poor conditions in their roles as paid carers, women laboring in the care economy face serious threats to their health.

The five most read posts from the Wilson Center’s Maternal Health Initiative team illustrate how inextricably linked women’s health is to every other aspect of society. Our most popular posts cover maternal and child mortality, faith based engagement in family planning, maternal health in areas of conflict, family planning and the economy, the impacts of caregiving, and Cancer in India.

At long last, my husband and I are empty-nesters. We have always worked in high-pressure jobs, and while the children were young, I put in plenty of non-work hours to care for them and for the household. My husband was unfailingly helpful, but now that our children are grown, I’m ready to renegotiate our “to do” list.

In 2018, our readers came to New Security Beat to understand how individuals and communities cope in the face of environmental uncertainty, particularly when the rule of law, natural resource management, and social services are lacking.

“Everyone in the community knew that I was the next [to get pregnant], but I was so determined that until I achieve my dream of becoming an accountant, I will not drop out of school, and I will not get pregnant,” said Rebecca Acio, a 19-year-old Ambassador for the Strengthening School-Community Accountability for Girls’ Education (SAGE) DREAMS Project, Uganda. She spoke at a recent Wilson Center event on emerging lessons from the DREAMS Innovation Challenge. As a peer educator at her school in Lira, Uganda, and a temporary dropout herself, Acio “knew what it cost to be a dropout” and worked to identify other at-risk girls to encourage them to stay in school.