Take Stock honours handed out in Oslo

The Take Stock Campaign awarded two honours this morning at the RHSC’s 16th General Membership Meeting in Oslo.

Dr. Ian M. Salas won the Take Stock Hero Award, which recognizes an individual who has made a significant contribution to reducing stockouts on a global, regional, country or local level. 

Dr. Salas is an Assistant Scientist in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, and a Research Economist with the Bill& Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Salas’ pioneering research demonstrated that stockouts of contraceptives lead to increases in unintended pregnancies, especially among poor, rural and low-educated women. His research results revitalized the national conversation about RH supplies in his native Philippines, and last year, the government passed a law to provide low income women access to free contraceptives.

UNFPA Supplies received the Take Stock Champion Award for a significant contribution to UNFPA Supplies, under the leadership of Jagdish Upadhyay, is the winner of the 2015 Take Stock Champion Award reducing stockouts on a global, regional, country or local level. In 2014 alone commodities provided through UNFPA Supplies reached 33 million women in more than 46 countries. Contraceptives provided by UNFPA Supplies in 2014 averted an estimated:

• 8 million unintended pregnancies
• 24,000 maternal deaths
• 138,000 child deaths
• 8 million abortions