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Summary: Report prepared by Liz Ercevik Amado on a workshop co-organized by the Istanbul-based Women for Women's Human Rights-New Ways and the Mediterranean Academy for Diplomatic Studies. The meeting convened 22 NGO representatives, advocates, and academics from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Turkey, Pakistan, and the U.S. to explore the themes of sexuality, gender, and sexual and bodily rights violations, and to discuss regional strategies for overcoming these human rights violations in national and international contexts from a legal, social and political perspective (21 pages).

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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).

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Summary: By Rama Lakshminarayanan (Reproductive Health Matters, Vol. 11, No. 21, May 2003). An analysis of the difficulties associated with health sector reform in the Philippines, in particular the negative consequences for reproductive health services. The decentralization process, initiated in 1991, was intended to improve the efficiency, equity, and effectiveness of the health sector. Given existing weaknesses and inequities in the system, however, the process created a number of unanticipated problems, with particular consequences for women. In order to avoid such problems in the future, it is necessary to consider a number of health and non-health factors before undertaking such reforms, and to be willing to make adjustments during implementation (12 pages).

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December 1, 2002

By Adrienne Germain

On a recent trip to India and Bangladesh, I looked into the face of AIDS in Asia, which is increasingly adolescent and female.

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Introduction
Mongolia, located between China and Russia, is a country with a unique history and rich culture. As you can see from the map, our land territory is large, but the total population is only 2.4 million. Twenty-five percent are adolescents aged 10-19. Because our country was once part of the socialist system, we have a centralized public education system. Consequently, school enrollment is high, and the population is highly literate. But, as in many cultures, discussion of sexuality was taboo in Mongolia for centuries. With the collapse of the socialist system, Mongolia has been experiencing changes in its political, economic, social, and cultural structures.

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Summary: By Ruth Dixon-Mueller and Adrienne Germain, (Population Policy and Women's Rights: Transforming Reproductive Choice, Ruth Dixon-Mueller, Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993). Paper originally commissioned for 1990 Bellagio Symposium, "The Politics of Induced Fertility Change." Also published in modified form in Population and Development Review (A supplement to Vol. 20, 1994, New York: Population Council) (27 pages).

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