Dr. Bogaletch Gebre is the recipient of this year's King Badouin African Development Prize. She is a passionate women’s rights activist from Ethiopia and has been recognized for her efforts to transform the lives of women through innovation and altering traditional conceptions of a woman’s role in shaping her political, economic, and social destiny.

Over the past decade, nearly 58 million girls were married before the age of 18. Child marriage is a truly global problem: In Africa, 42 percent of girls are married before turning 18, but it is also prevalent in parts of Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean (in South Asia, for instance, 46 percent of girls are married). Child brides often start childbearing early, leading to complications and producing high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality among girls in developing countries. Married girls are often forced to leave school, negatively affecting their ability to work and provide for their families. The panelists will describe current policies and programs working to support young women and delay marriage whenever possible.

Increasingly, family planning and HIV programs are seeking to expand their services to include maternal health care. The movement to integrate health services provides an important opportunity to share lessons learned across the different communities on their experiences with rights-based care. Join us for a discussion with experts in rights-based maternity care and its intersection with family planning and HIV.

Countries in Latin America are revising their patterns of international insertion and new patterns of economic and political integration are emerging.