- Comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health
- Family Planning
- Women, Girls, and HIV
- Maternal Health
- U.S. Foreign Policy & Funding
- Watch: Making U.S. Foreign Assistance Work for Women and Girls in Ethiopia
- Global Health Initiative
- Integrating HIV/AIDS and Sexual and Reproductive Health: U.S. Foreign Policy
- Female Condoms: Dual Protection
- Global Gag Rule
- Helms Amendment
- Foreign Assistance Budget
- Foreign Assistance Reform
- Kemp-Kasten Amendment
- Abstinence & Fidelity
- Anti-Prostitution Pledge
- The Critical Role of Advocacy in Foreign Assistance
- Why Women and Girls?
Foreign Assistance Reform
To increase the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance spending, policy makers are currently working to reorganize foreign assistance and bring greater coherence to the country's aid structure.
Such was started under the Bush Administration in 2006, and is long overdue. While amended annually, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 still governs U.S. development policy.
However, overhauling the Foreign Assistance Act will achieve nothing unless policy makers support human rights, specifically by prioritizing the wellbeing, rights, and empowerment of women. Because sexual and reproductive health and the human rights of women are critical to their wellbeing yet are widely neglected around the world, the U.S. cannot achieve its foreign policy goals without making these issues a U.S. priority.
As Congress and the Obama adminstration consider foreign assistance reform, CHANGE is working to ensure that U.S. development assistance prioritizes sexual and reproductive health, the human rights of women and girls, and the empowerment of local grassroots organizations around the world that promote sexual and reproductive health and human rights.
See CHANGE's Policy Brief Making U.S. Foreign Assistance Work: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Human Rights as Key to Global Development
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- Sexual and Reproductive Rights and the U.S. Global Health Initiative
The U.S. Global Health Initiative (GHI) is a comprehensive policy approach that seeks to strengthen, streamline, and increase the efficiency of existing U.S. global health funding programs—to achieve greater impact with every dollar. - What Does Family Planning Have to do With HIV? Everything.
Voluntary family planning is an indispensible component of HIV prevention and treatment. - Fact Sheet: Global Democracy Promotion Act of 2011
The Global Democracy Promotion Act of 2011 provides that the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act cannot impose eligibility restrictions on international recipients of U.S. aid that would be illegal if imposed nationally. Would constitute a legislative repeal of the Mexico City Policy, also called the Global Gag Rule. - Female Condoms and U.S. Foreign Assistance: An Unfinished Imperative for Women’s Health
Female Condoms and U.S. Foreign Assistance: An Unfinished Imperative for Women's Health, summarizes U.S. support for female condoms, identifies barriers, and offers concrete recommendations for improving U.S. efforts to increase access and availability of female condoms. - Fact Sheet: Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Act
The Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Act (H.R. 1319) establishes U.S. policy and authorizes assistance to support universal access to sexual and reproductive health care in developing countries, including contraception and safe abortion. - Policy Recommendations: Married Women and HIV: Comprehensive Prevention
In the absence of community-based efforts to alter the social structures that promote infidelity, public health programs which aim to reduce married women’s risk by telling men to be faithful will not succeed. - Research Summary: Marital Sex and the HIV Risk for Women Worldwide
Globally, women’s risk of contracting HIV is heightened if they are married, largely due to men’s extramarital sexual relationships. Despite this clear risk, current efforts to prevent the spread of HIV fall far short of protecting married women. - Human Trafficking, HIV/AIDS, and the Sex Sector
Current U.S. foreign policy relating to adults in the sex sector violates basic human rights, distracts from effective anti-trafficking efforts, and directly impedes global health programs intended to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS.
Related Links
- Americans for UNFPA
- Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA)
- Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR)
- ForeignAssistance.gov
- International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)
- International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC)
- Ipas
- PEPFAR Watch
- Population Action International (PAI)
- Prevention Now!
- Reproductive Health Matters




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