Tuvaluan dancers performing for the farewell ceremony of the President of Taiwan when she visited Funafuti.

Focus group discussion with health staff to discuss constraints faced in delivering primary health care services in Nuku’alofa, Tonga. 

Indigenous women have poorer health outcomes than non-indigenous in Cambodia. This community consultation with women in Mondulkiri highlighted the financial, transport and socio-cultural barriers they face in accessing health services. Traditional beliefs that define pregnancy related blood as polluting and require families to pay compensation to villagers where blood is spilled hinders families from allowing women to deliver in facilities and transporters being prepared to take them.

During field work as part of the gender assessment of H-EQIP we met this newly elected Commune Chief in Kratie. Women make up a small minority of elected representatives in Cambodia but there are signs that the leading political parties see the value in increasing their numbers. The Commune Chief’s father had himself been a Commune Chief and her husband supported her public position; arguably two key factors that enabled her to be successful.

We recently visited this busy Marie Stopes Bangladesh Maternity clinic in Jessore, Bangladesh. Marie Stopes Bangladesh along with BRAC Manoshi and Smiling Sun clinics is participating in the DFID Urban Health Programme which includes a Municipality led initiative to harmonize the different NGO discount cards for the extreme poor. One of the reasons for visiting Jessore was to meet stakeholders and design the process evaluation of this new common entitlement card.