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 have been working with the World Health Organization since 1989 in an effort to redefine approaches to contraceptive introduction. This has given me the opportunity to insist that strategies for research and policy development must simultaneously address people's needs, the capacity of programs to provide good quality of care, and the range of technological options available.

Probably the first time I was a boss was when I was associate dean of the graduate school at the University of Southern California. I was in my early 30s.

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.

It all started in India in the late 60s when I began helping my husband George, who was in the population field, evaluate the introduction of the intrauterine contraceptive device. At that time the IUD was considered to be the panacea for India's population problem. George's dissertation was focused on population and he became interested in the question of this new technology and how people were responding to it.

the most important thing one can do for children is not accept the limitations they are so willing to impose on themselves.

It's very important in a leadership role not to place your ego at the foreground and not to judge everything in relationship to how your ego is fed.