Articles

They are tired, and they want a break. That’s how community health workers in Senegal describe the women who visit their village health huts for family planning—women who often have had one baby after another.

When PATH began working in Thailand in the early 1980s, the HIV/AIDS crisis was just emerging. It was a time of confusion and fear, when the availability of accurate information crucial to the lives of both health care providers and the people they served was scarce. Some of our first projects in Thailand targeted both: We provided HIV-prevention training to factory workers, and we disseminated essential information on the virus and its prevention to health care providers.

It’s estimated that more than 200 million women worldwide who want products to help them plan their families lack access to contraceptives. In advance of the International Conference on Family Planning in Addis Ababa next month, Ethiopia’s Minister of Health Dr. Kesetebirhan Admasu writes this week about his country’s progress in providing access to family planning tools, the reasons behind the great demand for them, and the work yet to be done.

Over the years, the United States’ commitment to funding global health research has led to the development of remarkable tools that have saved millions of lives both at home and abroad. Today, research and development supported by the people of the United States—often through the US Agency for International Development (USAID)—continues to make a better life possible for people around the world. Support from USAID helps bring forth breakthrough tools that combat tenacious killers, such as complications of pregnancy and childbirth, as well as new threats, including emerging resistance to some of our most effective medicines.