The first installment of the “IGWG Members Take the Mic” blog series, “Infertility Matters: Embracing the Gendered Spectrum of Stigma, Needs, and Experiences in Sub-Saharan Africa,” is now available! This blog shares findings and insights from a literature review—conducted by the Agency for All project—that aimed to explore myths and misperceptions, social consequences, and crosscutting factors associated with reproductive agency and infertility, as well as to identify promising, infertility-related social and behavior change and gender transformative programs from across sub-Saharan Africa and globally.

Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), also called online violence, cyber violence, and digital violence, includes all forms of GBV committed using ICTs, including mobile phones, smartphones, the internet, social media, or other digital platforms or tools. The misuse of technology can have devastating consequences for women and girls’ safety, health, and rights when it is used to intimidate, harass, exploit, abuse, stalk, threaten and blackmail. To mitigate misuse of and capitalize on the potential that digital technology offers for accelerating universal access to SRH services, it is critical that SRH practitioners, services, and programs understand and address TFGBV.

This technical note provides an overview of gender transformative approaches to ending female genital mutilation (FGM) including program strategies, reference tools and resources, and case studies based on recommendations from the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Program on the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation: Accelerating Change, as well as UNICEF’s experience in implementing programs addressing FGM.

This blog post asserts that to help women—especially young women—empower themselves to choose contraceptive options, governments, the private sector, schools, and other institutions and individuals with the ability to change women’s lives should foster environments allowing them to be active agents of their own lives. This requires changing social norms so that gender equality is a reality; guaranteeing educational and employment opportunities that help level the playing ground for women and girls; and providing access to capital for women’s small businesses, agriculture, and other opportunities.

ICRW conducted a scoping and mapping exercise in Kenya, Uganda, and India to explore the roll-out and implementation of health and socio-economic-related COVID-19 policy responses, and to understand the status and specific challenges of urban informal women workers in each context. This brief shares findings, case studies, and recommendations from these research exercises.

USAID’s Integrated Health Program (IHP) focuses on strengthening maternal health while covering a range of activities, many focused on improving healthcare services, to be an effective driver in reducing maternal mortality in critical states of Nigeria. This blog focuses on IHP’s work with the Sokoto State to strengthen the healthcare system and utilize facility-level efforts as a key strategy for engaging men as beneficiaries and partners for increased access to reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health services.