On International Day of Happiness, Rutgers is pleased to share a new animated video, created through the Prevention+ programme, which promotes gender-equal societies without violence, as well as happier and healthier relationships.

The world is going through a critical period of increasing conservatism. There is a tendency to turn away from universal human rights, towards more dogmatic beliefs. The impact of this shift has disproportionate consequences for women, with limitations to their rights, the reinforcement of the male hierarchy and the marginalisation of sexual and gender diversity. Our international programme Prevention+ works with religious leaders to end gender-based violence (GBV).

Saturday 2 March is SheDecides Day 2019. That day, organisations, individuals and politicians from all over the world will ask attention for women’s freedom of choice to decide for themselves whether, when, and with whom they want children. This remains an urgent topic, as 214 million women around the world still don't have access to the contraceptives they want. A concept that to many Dutch women is quite inconceivable. That is why SheDecides Day signals the start of a public campaign, in which Rutgers calls attention to the position of women in countries where availability of contraception and safe abortion care is not self-evident. An online campaign - centred around stories from women in other countries - is launched, in which Dutch women are invited to reflect on their freedom of choice.

This week, Rutgers took important steps in Ethiopia to realise ‘the dream’ as part of their She Makes Her Safe Choice Programme, committing to drastically reduce the number of unsafe abortions and funded by the Dutch National Postcode Lottery’s Dream Fund. As part of this ambitious dream, Rutgers has taken an innovative and courageous approach in the design and implementation of the programme.

National coordinators (NC) from the Right Here Right Now strategic partnership have successfully completed a three-day course on leadership in Utrecht. Meaningful youth participation and youth leadership are core principles of the SRHR advocacy partnership, and with their new skills the national coordinators are now able to lead and manage their national platforms more effectively.

After more than 20 years, Rutgers has closed its country office in Pakistan. The closure follows orders from the Pakistani government to wind down all operations, which was announced to Rutgers and several other international NGOs early this year. Rutgers is very disheartened by the sudden closing of the office in Pakistan, and thanks all the staff who contributed tirelessly to its work in the past decades.

During the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) in Kigali, Rwanda, today, Rutgers launches its toolkit on gender transformative approaches (GTA). A first edition was handed to Renet van der Waals of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs by Ton Coenen, Executive Director of Rutgers. The new GTA toolkit will help professionals implement Rutgers’ evidence-based way of working in existing programmes to improve the sexual health and rights of all, and end gender-based violence.

November 12 to 15, Rutgers will lead a number of key activities the 5th International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP), which takes place in Kigali, Rwanda. This year’s conference is focused on the theme, Investing for a Lifetime of Returns, which draws upon sustainable strategies to reach the goal of enabling an additional 120 million women to access voluntary, quality contraception by 2020.

Choice can change the world. This perspective played a central role on Wednesday, 17 October, during the launch of the State of the World Population 2018 report at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague. The launch of the report is organised on a yearly basis in cooperation with Rutgers, UNFPA and (this year) the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

UNITED NATIONS, New York, 17 October 2018--The global trend towards smaller families is a reflection of people making reproductive choices to have as few or as many children as they want, when they want. When people lack choice, it can have a long-term impact on fertility rates, often making them higher or lower than what most people desire, according to The State of World Population 2018, published today by UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency.