Gender equality and women’s wellbeing are key for achieving sustainable development. Ensuring global access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is therefore a targeted area within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. SRHR is also a profile issue within Swedish development cooperation – amounting to 8 percent of the total aid budget.
The newly published Guttmacher Lancet Commission on SRHR highlights that more needs to be done globally to address this issue. More than 300 000 women die each year during pregnancy and childbirth, mostly in poor countries. More than 45 million suffer from insufficient prenatal care and more than 25 million unsafe abortions take place.
How can prominent donor countries like Sweden work to reduce global maternal mortality? And how can Swedish development aid best strengthen sexual and reproductive health and rights? Welcome to this EBA Development Dissertation Brief* seminar which will present summaries of three new dissertations on the topic of SRHR and international development, followed by a discussion with representatives from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, RFSU and Shifo. This is the second DDB-seminar that the EBA is hosting on the topic of SRHR.
*The EBA Development Dissertation Brief-Series (DDB) provides fledgling PhDs with the opportunity to summarise their dissertation, focusing on its relevance for Swedish development cooperation.
PROGRAMME
9.00 Introduction
Julia Schalk
Presentations
Closing the quality gap: investigating health system bottlenecks and quality improvement strategies for maternal and newborn care in Sub Saharan Africa, focusing on Tanzania
Ulrika Baker
Health systems bottlenecks and evidence-based district health planning: Experiences from the district health system in Uganda
Dorcus Kiwanuka Henriksson
The Impact of Abortion Legalization on Fertility and Female Empowerment: New Evidence from Mexico
Hanna Mühlrad
Panel discussion
Dorcus Kiwanuka Henriksson, Hanna Mühlrad, Emilia Goland (RFSU), Lennarth Hjelmåker (Minsitry for Foreign Affairs) & Nargis Rahimi (Shifo). Moderator: Julia Schalk
10.30 Seminar ends
SPEAKERS AND DISCUSSANTS
Ulrika Baker, (PhD, 2017), Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet
Emilia Goland, International Programme Manager, RFSU
Lennarth Hjelmåker, Ambassador, UN Policy Department, Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Dorcus Kiwanuka Henriksson, (PhD, 2017), Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University
Hanna Mühlrad, (PhD, 2018), Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg
Nargis Rahimi, Co-Founder and Partnerships Director, Shifo Foundation
Julia Schalk, Deputy Director, International Departement, RFSU, and member of EBA