World health leaders should address "culture as well as condoms" when they meet to discuss enhancing family planning services at the London Summit on Family Planning.

Racheal Boma of White Ribbon Alliance Tanzania discusses the importance of accountability ahead of the London Summit on Family Planning.

Health ministers, charities, donors and private sector companies working in the family planning business will discuss increasing the global availability of contraceptives and how to empower women so they have more choices about sex.

The London Summit on Family Planning will be held on World Population Day, July 11, 2012. White Ribbon Alliance members will be at this historic Summit as delegates and as one of a select number of bloggers invited to join the blogger gallery, from where we will be live blogging throughout, with exclusive Q&As with key summit participants. Our Citizen’s Voice video blog will be bringing you interviews with key delegates and spokespeople behind the scenes in the lead up to the Summit, and will be available via the White Ribbon Alliance YouTube Channel.

On July 11, world leaders, non-governmental organizations, donors, business leaders, and others will gather in London to pledge their support to help transform the lives of the world's poorest women and girls.

Contraceptives save lives. Giving women and girls access to contraceptives is transformational – families become healthier, wealthier, and better educated. Reducing unintended pregnancies leads to fewer girls dropping out of school and greater opportunity to escape poverty.

The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood Yemen and the Ministry of Public Health and Population are working together, along with other developmental partners and NGOs for advocacy among the Parliamentarians to pass the safe age of marriage law. Fighting to ban child marriage in Yemen is so difficult as it has religious, cultural and tribal roots, but this challenge gives us more strength to save our girls and to stop the violence they are exposed to, to assure that they have the means and tools to make their own decisions, and to ensure their participation in sustainable development.

In the week beginning May 14, 2012, I was privileged to be among these midwives in a workshop “Strengthening Midwifery in Africa” co-organized by the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) and White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood. A key message from the workshop was how important it is for a midwife to have advocacy knowledge and skills so they can speak on behalf of themselves and their clients. A call was extended to WRA to allocate time and resources to provide opportunities for midwives to gain skills in advocacy.

A brief report of WRATZ participation in the Child Survival Call for Action Summit and meetings around the summit in Washington D.C, June 11- 15, 2012. The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood Tanzania (WRATZ) along with Tanzania Midwives Association (TAMA) through the support of the Global Partnership for Maternal Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) and Global White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood (WRA), participated in meetings around the Child Survival Call for Action Summit as well as in the summit.

The United Kingdom All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health held a hearing on the issue of child marriage to present findings on the cultural tradition of marrying girls far too young to be brides, the complex barriers keeping this practice alive, and the solutions to stop child marriage. This testimony is submitted by Samjhana Phuyal an active member of the White Ribbon Alliance in Nepal (Safe Motherhood Network Federation) and Programme Officer for Rural Women Development and Unity Centre.

A new study by the Guttmacher Institute and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, finds that the number of women in developing countries who want to avoid pregnancy but are not using modern contraception declined only slightly between 2008 and 2012, from 226 to 222 million. However, in the 69 poorest countries—where 73% of all women with unmet need for modern contraceptives reside—the number actually increased, from 153 to 162 million women.

Researchers from across the world have joined forces to improve the quality of midwifery care and reduce maternal, newborn and infant mortality. This global collaboration, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is examining key areas of reproductive, maternal and newborn care that are within the scope of midwifery services. The aim is to collate and disseminate the global evidence to assist national decision-making and improve midwifery services.

The programme will be steered by an Executive Group that includes the White Ribbon Alliance, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and others.