We wanted to see how access to care can be expanded and service quality can be improved when one uses a participatory approach to program development. We showed that major changes become possible if you work in a participatory manner, listen to local people, diagnose what the problems are, provide training and identify where there are opportunities for mobilizing local resources to take action. In time leaders from other municipalities expressed interest in replication and the project succeeded in expanding innovations to three other areas.

I often say that shareholders should feel very responsible for how responsive corporations are to the public trust.

When we conducted focus group interviews in the first municipality in Brazil before initiating the pilot project, a woman commented: Getting an appointment in the public sector municipal health services is like "winning the lottery." I would like to make it possible for many women and men in Latin America to win the lottery and receive the type of reproductive health services they so urgently need.

I'm the youngest of 12 children. And although I was the youngest, I tried to organize things in my family. When there were disputes, I tried to mediate.

We hope to organize team residencies and a conference bringing together professionals from Latin America and from other groups around the world who are also focusing on this issue. We want to bring them together so we can learn from each other, and then widely publicize our conclusions.

I would like to see policy makers and international donor agencies realize that it is not enough to give money for demonstration projects. From the very beginning plans should be made for the scaling-up of successful innovations.

We felt that the Gates Foundation looked at our track record and our publications and decided that "this is persuasive; this needs to be done. Let's see what they can do."