Kathmandu/Bangkok/New Delhi, 17 March 2021: Drastic cuts in the availability and use of essential public health services across South Asia due to COVID-19 may have contributed to an estimated 228,000 additional child deaths in 2020, according to a new United Nations

Shame, isolation and segregation are among the indignities faced by the hundreds of thousands of women and girls worldwide who suffer from obstetric fistula, an injury of the birth canal after prolonged and obstructed labour. The girls and women afflicted by the condition, which is preventable and largely treatable, are often plagued by chronic incontinence. As a result, they face devastating social stigma.

KATHMANDU: The global reproductive rights movement that began in the 1960s transformed the lives of hundreds of millions of women, empowering them to govern their own bodies and shape their own futures. But despite the gains made over the past 50 years, since the establishment of UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, the world still has a long way to go before rights and choices are claimed by all, according to the State of World Population 2019 report released by UNFPA.

KATHMANDU, 16 January 2017 – The official start of the Bachelor in Midwifery program in Nepal is an important milestone towards improving maternal and newborn health in the country, said the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).