Women's Empowerment and World TB Day
March is an exciting time for women's and children's health.  In the days leading up to International Women's Day on March 8, world leaders will gather at the United Nations in New York for the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). There they will discuss the global status of women and girls with a focus on empowering rural women. Empowerment and gender equality are central to the Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health, increasing reproductive choice and reducing child marriage, discrimination and gender-based violence. These connections will be reinforced on March 2, when the Government of Canada, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH), and the UN Foundation will host a side event on enhancing accountability for women's and children's health.
March 24th is World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, and this year's focus is on the hidden epidemic of childhood TB. Reducing illness and deaths from TB is essential to improving women's and children's health and accelerating progress on each of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Over the next five years at least 3 million women and half a million children will die from TB, even though we have the tools to cure this disease. In many low- and middle-income countries women and children, as well as vulnerable groups, lack access to accurate diagnosis and high-quality treatment for TB. You can make a personalized call to stop TB in your lifetime here.
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Updates from February
New Commitment: Fashion 4 Development Moves to Support Women's and Children's Health — Fashion 4 Development (F4D) announced its commitment to join the Every Woman Every Child movement on February 14. F4D is a global platform that works to advance the MDGs. Read the release. View the commitment.
Franca Sozzani, Editor-in Chief of Vogue Italia, meets with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Tanzania Workshop Strengthens Accountability for Women and Children — From February 12-15, the Government of Tanzania hosted a multi-country workshop to develop country roadmaps that enhance results and accountability for women's and children's health. Organized by WHO with partners, more than 100 representatives from ministries and communities participated. Learn more.
Save the Children Exposes the Hidden Crisis of Malnutrition — On February 14, Save the Children (STC), in partnership with the Canadian and Zambian Permanent Missions to the UN and in support of Every Woman Every Child, launched a new global report: "A Life Free from Hunger: Tackling Child Malnutrition." As part of the launch, STC organized the first ever non-stop global tweetchat on child malnutrition (#hiddencrisis) featuring experts, ministers, academics, inventors, TV chefs, campaigners and moms. The chat featured stakeholders from over a dozen countries and encompassed five languages. Learn more.
WHO and Partners Launch New Web Site on Accountability — On February 2, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a new web site on results, resources and oversight for women's and children's health. The site will track progress on implementing the Accountability Commission's recommendations and inform the international community about the work of the independent Expert Review Group (iERG). Visit the new site. Most recently, the iERG has issued a call for evidence of good practices and obstacles in women's and children's health, and opened registration for a stakeholder meeting to be held in Geneva in May.
Ann Starrs at UN Association of the USA Members' Day at the UN — Ann Starrs, President of Family Care International, joined a panel entitled "The Future We Want: Emerging Issues around Rio+20 and the Millennium Development Goals Beyond 2015" during the recent Members' Day Conference at the UN on February 10. There she discussed Every Woman Every Child, the Millennium Development Goals and the role of accountability in helping to ensure implementation. Read the remarks.
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