Girls Discovered: Global Mapping of Adolescent Girls

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This post was originally posted on Maternal Mortality Daily.

I recently learned about a great resource for those working to improve the lives of women and girls, Girls Discovered: Global Maps of Adolescent Girls. The website has three main sections: Maps and Data, Sunita’s Story, and Take Action. The project is a collaborative effort of the Coalition for Adolescent Girls and Maplecroft.

The Maps and Data section has a nearly endless number of interactive maps and data sets focused on adolescent girls around the world across a number of health, education, social, economic, and population indices. Several of the maps provide interesting information about maternal health or issues impacting maternal health around the world–such as abortion legalization,  age specific fertilityglobal anemia ratesbirths attended by skilled personnel, and several more.

Sunita’s Story seamlessly combines photos and narrative with maps and data to tell the personal story of one girl in India, Sunita, while also presenting the national burden and geographic distribution of the issues that she faces throughout her life.

The Take Action section has three PDF downloadable plans for taking action to address many of the issues facing adolescent girls that are mapped on the site. There is a global action plan, a national action plan for India, and a local action plan for India.

Description of the project:

“The welfare of adolescent girls is crucial in determining economic and social outcomes for countries today, and in the future. For girls to become healthy mothers, productive citizens and economic contributors, their unique needs must be seen and understood.

Yet today, adolescent girls are undercounted and so underserved. Counting them is the first step to increasing their visibility.

Girls Discovered takes that first step. As a comprehensive source of maps and data on the status of adolescent girls worldwide, Girls Discovered helps donors, policy makers and implementing agencies target their investments.

This one-stop shop for information on adolescent girls is sourced from organizations operating in the public interest, and is meant for researchers, practitioners, advocates, policy-makers and the public – anyone who seeks change for the world’s 600 million adolescent girls.”

Mapping for Maternal Health:

A number of organizations have recently started using mapping technologies to provide visual representation of research and data while others are using mapping tools to link organizations working in maternal health in an effort to build a stronger and more interconnected community of maternal health professionals.

Here is a brief list of interesting maternal health mapping projects, including the three MHTF maternal health maps:

For more information on the mapping activities of the Maternal Health Task Force, clickhere.

If you know of other maternal health mapping initiatives, please let us know in the comments section of this post!