​The Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa (IMCHA) initiative in East Africa is a project that is implemented by 13 research teams spread across Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Malawi. It is part of a bigger IMCHA in Africa initiative implemented in partnership of Global Affairs Canada (GAC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

There have been great maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) achievements across sub-Saharan African over the last two decades. Countries have made progress against many key indicators, including under-five and maternal mortality, as well as the provision of family planning and HIV services.

 By Lynette Kamau, Senior Policy and Communications Officer

The World Health Organization defines gender as socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles, and relationships of and between women and men. Gender varies from society to society and can be changed. People are taught appropriate norms and behaviors – including how they should interact with others of the same or opposite sex within households, communities, and workplaces.

My Women Deliver experience started on Sunday, June 2, at the Vancouver airport. The airport was flooded with individuals from across the globe, forcing me to stand in line for over two hours, a sheer testament to the number that had arrived to attend the conference. As I made my way to the front of the line, one of the airport staff asked me inquisitively, "What is this conference for women about?" I smiled as I replied, "it is not a women's conference but one where people — men and women– discuss how to advance equity in all aspects of a girl's and woman's life.

The southern African nation has one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates, at 489 deaths per 100,00 live births (compared to seven deaths per 100,000 live births in Canada), and in places such as Nampula province in the country's north, it's not uncommon for women to die simply because they can't get to the hospital in time to deliver their babies.