Person:
Chowdhury, Sadia Afroze
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Maternal health,
Child health,
Nutrition,
Health systems
Degrees
Departments
Global Practice on Health, Nutrition and Population, The World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Dr. Sadia A Chowdhury is currently an independent expert on women and children's health and nutrition and health systems strengthening for the same. As part of the World Bank, she led the World Bank's support for the health systems strengthening projects and population projects in several states of India as also for the National Reproductive and Child Health program. As the organizational lead for Sexual, Reproductive Health including Maternal and Child Health in the Human Development Presidency of the World Bank, she led the development of the World Bank's Reproductive Health Action Plan (2010-2015). Following this she has been the Executive Director of the BRAC Institute of Global Health (BIGH), an institute under BRAC University in Bangladesh.
Publication Search Results
1 - 3 of 3
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Publication
Fertility Regulation Behaviors and Their Costs : Contraception and Unintended Pregnancies in Africa and Eastern Europe & Central Asia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-12)The report consists of three parts: global trends in fertility, contraceptive use and unintended pregnancies; studies of two regions (Africa and Eastern Europe/Central Asia) and two countries (Nigeria and Kazakhstan) on the costs of fertility regulation behaviors and provider attitudes towards contraceptive use. Fertility levels have declined steadily over the last three decades but the pace of decline varies among regions. Countries that have achieved a high level of contraceptive use have reached a lower fertility level. A gap continues to exist between actual and desired family size, resulting in unintended pregnancies. More than one-third of the pregnancies that occur are unintended and one in five pregnancies ends in induced abortion. Almost half of all induced abortions are unsafe, and the proportion of all abortions that are unsafe have increased during the last decade. Sixty-six percent of unintended pregnancies occur among women who are not using any method of contraception. Investing in quality family planning programs is a cost-effective way to address unmet need for contraception and reduce the risks of unsafe abortion, thereby improving maternal health. If contraception were provided to the 137 million women who lack access, maternal mortality will decline by 25-35 percent. -
Publication
Economics and Ethics of Results-Based Financing for Family Planning : Evidence and Policy Implications
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-12)This paper was developed for World Bank task team leaders (TTLs) and teams designing results-based financing (RBF) programs in family planning (FP). It explores the rationale for introducing such incentives based on insights from classical and behavioral economics, to respond to supply- and demand-side barriers to using FP services. To help the reader understand why incentivizing FP requires specific attention in RBF, the evolution of incentives in vertical FP programs introduced from the 1950s to the early 1990s and the ethical concerns raised in these programs are described. RBF programs after the 1990s were also studied to understand the ways FP is currently incentivized. The paper also touches on the effects of the incentive programs for FP as described in the literature. Finally, it examines ethical concerns related to FP incentives that should be considered during the design, implementation, and evaluation of programs and provides a conceptual framework that can be of use for task teams in the decision making process for FP in RBF programs. It should be noted that the paper is concerned exclusively with developing a framework that can help design ethical programs to address the unmet need for FP. -
Publication
Educating for Health : Using Incentive-Based Salaries to Teach Oral Rehydration Therapy
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-08)In Bangladesh an education program aimed at teaching mothers how to prepare and use oral rehydration solution to treat diarrhea relied on output-based incentives to ensure that the teaching was effective. The program tied field workers' pay to fast-cycle feedback on performance against output indicators. Monitoring results show that the approach worked: the mothers learned effectively. Over 10 years the program reached 12 million households.