Each year, the International Women's Health Coalition issues the "Top Ten Wins for Women's Health and Rights." 

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Summary: By Beth Fredrick (The Lancet, Vol. 370, No. 9595, October 13, 2007, 1295-1297). Discusses the actions that governments, donors, health practitioners, and civil society must take to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity related to unsafe abortion. 

By Adrienne Germain and Jennifer Kidwell

Monday Developments, August 8, 2005

Five years ago, the world’s governments defined eight Millennium Development Goals to inspire action and monitor progress on eliminating global poverty by 2015. They represent a vision for collaboration among all people committed to moral, as well as material, global progress.

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Summary: By Adrienne Germain (Our Planet Magazine, October 2004). Explains why empowering women is the key to solving a range of global health, development, and environmental challenges, reviews commitments made on improving women's health and advancing women's rights at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD, Cairo, 1994) and summarizes achievements made in the last decade.

Science, Vol 305, Issue 5680, 17, 2 July 2004

By Adrienne Germain

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decision in May 2004 not to allow over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill, Plan B, is but one troubling example of the increasing impact of politics and ideology on science and health policy. The agency's ruling, contrary to recommendations from an external advisory panel and its own scientific staff, is indicative of the growing gap between common sense and U.S. policies affecting the well-being of women and girls worldwide.

Newsweek, May 10, 2004

By Kati Marton

Women suffer countless disadvantages compared with men. Even after decades of progress, we make up two thirds of the world's 880 million illiterate adults, and up to 70 percent of its poorest citizens. But health remains the cruelest of all inequalities. Click here to read the full text of the article.

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Summary: By Rounaq Jahan (Reproductive Health Matters, Vol. 11, No. 21, May 2003). Examines how advocates for gender equity succeeded in influencing health sector reform in Bangladesh in the mid-1990s, but failed to exert the same influence over the implementation of those reforms. The article discusses the major challenges advocates faced, the strategies they developed in response, and as a result, the gains they were able to achieve. These included ensuring that social and gender equity as well as reproductive health were central concerns of the health system, developing indicators to monitor program performance, improving community and stakeholder participation, and recognizing the importance of gender in all health interventions. Despite these successes, substantial ground was lost in the implementation process, indicating the need for civil society to play a more prominent role at each stage of the reform process (9 pages).