Founded in 1980, the International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC) is a nonprofit organization based in New York City that works with individuals and groups in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to promote women's reproductive and sexual health and rights. We provide technical, managerial, moral and financial support to reproductive health service providers, advocacy groups and women's organizations in Southern countries. We publish books and position papers, and maintain a global communications network of 6,000 individuals and organizations in 143 countries. We convene meetings on new or neglected aspects of women's sexual and reproductive health, and act directly to influence the work of population and health professionals, national governments, and international agencies, including donors.
IWHC works with a growing international women's health movement that advocates health and population policies to better meet the needs of women and their families, communities, and countries. Our goals are to enable every woman to experience a health sexual life, free from disease, violence, pain, or death; to manage her own fertility safely and effectively; and to bear and raise health children as and when she desires. IWHC is supported by private U.S. foundations, several European governments, and individuals.
In the past decade, women around the world have emerged as a dynamic force at national levels and in the global arena. Women have brought their realities and experiences to the attention of governments, financial institutions, and policy makers. In Nigeria, Chile, Bangladesh, and the U.S., women are working to ensure that safe abortion services are accessible, that gender-based violence is ended, and that young people receive sound health and sex education and services. As the twenty-first century approaches, women are bringing an international dimension to local advocacy efforts, and a grassroots dimension to global efforts. Working together, we can and will make a change.
In Cairo, at the 1994 United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, 184 governments reached an unprecedented consensus to redesign population policies. Together with our colleagues, the International Women's Health Coalition helped to shift the focus of population policies from simply numbers of people to the health, empowerment, and rights of individuals. A year later in Beijing, at the Fourth World Conference on Women, governments reaffirmed that ensuring women's sexual and reproductive health and rights is the just and effective way to achieve population goals.
Health interventions alone will not control population growth. Girls' and women's life options, including access to education, resources such as land and capital, and employment, must also be increased, and are essential in their own right.
Reproductive health care is more than family planning. A range of services is required beyond contraceptive choices. These include: health and sexuality education; prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS and reproductive tract infections; safe abortion and delivery services; counseling; and health care for infants and children. Services are designed to meet clients' needs, treat women with respect, and ensure good quality care.
We support ground-breaking programs.
IWHC makes grants to promising leaders and organizations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America for innovative health programs, training, networking, public education, and advocacy. We support 50 projects in six countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroun, Chile, Nigeria, and Peru.
We encourage prevention and early intervention.
With IWHC funds, the leading feminist group in Cameroun counsels women who have been abused and advocates eradication of domestic violence and female genital mutilation. In Chile, Nigeria, and Brazil, we support women's groups that are raising public awareness of HIV/AIDS. These groups provide women with tools to negotiate safer sex and to protect themselves from domestic violence. We and our colleagues know that reaching men and boys is essential, so we also back community groups in Brazil and Nigeria that educate men and boys about reproductive health, reproductive rights, sexuality, and gender roles.
We work to transform institutions to better meet women's needs.
We support non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Chile and Brazil that sensitize and train medical professionals to provide respectful, women-centered health care. We are the secretariat for HERA (Health, Empowerment, Rights & Accountability), an international alliance of 26 women leaders from 20 countries. HERA and IWHC work to ensure that the Cairo and Beijing conference principles become central to the policies of the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and United Nations development agencies.
We sustain action on controversial, yet critical, issues in women's health.
Since we provided its start-up grant in 1993, a small, all-volunteer group in Nigeria has evolved into a model organization for adolescent sex and gender education that provides clinical care, STD and HIV/AIDS information, and teenage pregnancy-prevention services. In several countries and at the international level, we support a variety of projects to protect or expand women's access to safe abortion services.
We advocate changes in population policies and development assistance.
We sponsor public panels, undertake public opinion research, publish technical papers, and hold dialogues with government officials, academics, and NGOs about implementing the Cairo and Beijing commitments. For example, we are working closely with donors and the government of Bangladesh to transform their national population policy to one based on women's needs. We are encouraging the U.S. foreign policy establishment to modify foreign assistance priorities in order to support women's sexual health and rights.