To tackle period poverty, UNFPA and its partners manufacture sanitary pads and distribute them among women and girls in The Gambia.

UNFPA is providing vital maternal health care to ensure women give birth safely as maternity hospitals in Syria are under immense strain after the recent earthquakes.

Health systems and communities are falling short in ending obstetric fistula. Gender discrimination and social marginalization create additional risks, resulting in fistula disproportionately occurring among impoverished, underserved and marginalized women and girls. UNFPA leads the global Campaign to End Fistula, a drive to transform the lives of vulnerable women and girls. The 20-year-old campaign represents a global commitment to fistula prevention and holistic treatment, including surgical repair and social reintegration and rehabilitation.

UNFPA highlights 5 reasons women and girls in Syria and Türkiye still need your support 3 months later after the devasting earthquake.  

The single most important factor in stopping preventable maternal and newborn deaths: access to midwives. And yet the world is short of 900,000 of these essential service providers. Addressing this deficit could prevent two-thirds of maternal and newborn deaths, saving more than 4.3 million lives a year by 2035. What’s necessary now is the political will to expand the ranks and reach of midwives around the world. With that in mind, the UNFPA theme for the International Day of the Midwife this year is “Actioning Evidence: Leading the Way to Enhance Quality Midwifery Care Globally.”

Instead of celebrating the world’s population landmark of 8 billion people, media reports have been overwhelmingly fearful. UNFPA’s latest population report asks what is fact and what is fiction.

In a new advocacy brief, UNFPA explores how climate change disproportionately harms women of African descent and other members of marginalized communities.

Ours is a world of hope and possibility, a world where the human family is larger than ever before. 8 Billion strong. UNFPA highlights why it's making a case for reproductive rights and choices.  

New data reveals population anxieties are widespread and governments are increasingly adopting policies aimed at raising, lowering or maintaining fertility rates. But efforts to influence fertility rates are very often ineffective and can erode women’s rights, according to this year’s UNFPA  landmark report 8 Billion Lives, Infinite Possibilities: the case for rights and choices. As an instrument that highlights emerging issues in the field of sexual and reproductive health, the State of World Population Report 2023 also urges a radical rethink of how countries address changing demographics.

Around the world, patriarchal systems of power have long reinforced norms and ideas that drive gender inequality and its devastating manifestations, including gender-based violence. These issues impact millions of women and girls every year; in fact, one third of women globally have experienced intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence or both. Amid these challenges, UNFPA and Palestine’s Ministry of Health launched a new programme to educate midwives, obstetricians, doctors, and others on how to care for patients who have experienced sexual violence. 

More than 9 million people in Türkiye and 8.8 million in Syria were affected by two massive earthquakes. UNFPA provides psychosocial support and and health services across temporary camps.

In Kenya, midwifery educator Duncan Shikuku is leading the charge not just to safeguard maternal lives, but also to ensure women are given respectful, compassionate care: “Midwives are the bridge between pregnancy and life in the outside world. What could be more important?"

UNFPA estimates there are more than 130,000 pregnant women in Syria, around 14,800 of whom will deliver in the next month. UNFPA was part of the first cross-border convoy to arrive with much needed relief items. 

Rescuers work into the night, racing against time, hoping to find survivors amid the overwhelming devastation caused by the Türkiye- Syria earthquake. Thousands of buildings, including maternity facilities and safe spaces for women and girls, have been severely damaged or destroyed.  UNFPA is committed to support the people of Türkiye and Syria affected by the earthquakes, including the pregnant women who are expected to give birth in the coming weeks under these difficult conditions. Women working with the UNFPA-supported Women and Girls Safe Space are providing postnatal counseling and delivering maternal kits to pregnant women and new mothers.

Early in the morning of 6 February, while most people were still sleeping, a powerful earthquake rocked Türkiye, carving death and destruction in the country’s southeast and in neighbouring Syria. Among the estimated 15 million people affected in Türkiye are over 214,000 pregnant women – of whom almost 24,000 are due to give birth in the next month. With essential medical supplies wiped out across the two countries and hundreds of health centres, maternity facilities and safe spaces damaged, UNFPA is on the ground across affected areas in both Türkiye and Syria and remains dedicated to re-establishing services critical to the well-being and protection of millions of vulnerable, traumatized women and girls in urgent need of maternal care and support.