<p class="bodytext"> <strong>UNITED NATIONS, New York</strong> — UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is appealing for $3 million to address the urgent humanitarian concerns of cyclone-affected populations, particularly women and girls, in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady and Yangon regions.</p>

<p> <strong>CAPE TOWN</strong> — A three-day conference on tracking global progress to reduce maternal, newborn and child deaths has concluded today with a call for scaled-up investments in basic health services and human resources to reduce the preventable deaths of over 10 million children and women each year.</p>

<p> <strong>New York/Cape Town</strong> — The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health has called on the Group of Eight (G-8) nations’ leaders to fulfil their previous commitments to global health and commit to new, long-term financing for essential interventions that could avert the deaths of over 6 million mothers, newborns and children every year. </p>

<p class="bodytext"> <strong>UNITED NATIONS, Geneva</strong> — This is an unfortunate anniversary. Fourteen years ago, in April 1994, news got out that ethnic violence in Kigali was spreading throughout Rwanda.</p>

<p> <strong>New York / Cape Town</strong> — Leading global health experts, policymakers and parliamentarians are convening in Cape Town from 17th to 19th April at the Countdown to 2015 conference to address the urgent need for accelerated progress to reduce maternal, newborn and child deaths.</p>

<p> <strong>SYLHET, Bangladesh</strong> — Twenty-nine women suffering from obstetric fistula underwent repair surgery here last week during a three-day marathon training session that involved medical staff from four Asian countries.</p>

<p> <span class="bodytext"> <strong>New York</strong> -</span> Leading global health experts, policymakers and parliamentarians will gather in Cape Town, South Africa from 17 to 19 April 2008 for the <em>Countdown to 2015 for Maternal, Newborn & Child Survival</em> Conference and report launch.</p>

<p> <strong>UNITED NATIONS, New York</strong> - UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, welcomes the focus on peace and economic development at the 11th Summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) that is taking place in Dakar, Senegal.</p>

<p class="bodytext"> <strong>KAMPALA, Uganda</strong> – UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is lending its voice to health advocates from around the globe who have issued an urgent call to action to meet severe health workforce shortages in Africa and Asia.</p>

<p> <strong>UNITED NATIONS, New York</strong> — A policy maker who advocates population and gender issues, Dame Billie Antoinette Miller of Barbados, and a New York-based non-governmental organization (NGO) that helps save women’s lives in developing countries, Family Care International (FCI), have won this year’s <a href="http://www.unfpa.org/about/popaward/index.htm">United Nations Population Award</a>.</p>

<p> <strong>New York</strong> – Expressing their commitment to the elimination of female genital mutilation, also called female genital cutting and female genital mutilation/cutting, 10 United Nations agencies* pledged in a <a href="http://www.unfpa.org/publications/detail.cfm?ID=361&filterListType=">statement</a> today to support governments, communities, and women and girls to abandon the practice within a generation, with a major reduction in many countries by 2015, the year the Millennium Development Goals are set to be achieved.</p>

<p> <strong>UNITED NATIONS, New York</strong> — Government officials, experts, and representatives of non-governmental organizations will meet here next week to evaluate investments made so far in achieving equality between men and women.</p>