In 2008, the SMRH Working Group co-sponsored, with the Child Survival and Technical Support Project (CSTS+), a two week Basics of Community-Based Family Planning Regional Workshop in Bamako, Mali, via the USAID Flexible Fund, which seeks to promote the development of, interest in, and quality of community-based family planning and reproductive health services worldwide. The workshop covered the basics of community-based family planning, program design, and monitoring and evaluation issues.

Representatives from the SMRH Working Group participated in the Women Deliver conference, which marked the 20th anniversary of the launch of global Safe Motherhood Initiative. The goals of the conference were to 1) provide a spotlight the critical connection between women's health, rights, education and poverty reduction, 2) encourage governments to integrate women's health and rights into national plans and strategies, 3) kick off a campaign to raise substantial additional resources from public and private sectors and, 4) advocate for the use data on the health of women, mothers, and babies as a key indicator of the health of nations.

The SMRH Working Group sponsored several technical updates, including Where there is no doctor: Home-based newborn and child care by CHWs with Abhay Bang (Search); promising post-partum interventions for mothers and newborns; harnessing the power of new HIV positive mothers as "Mentor Mothers" in prenatal units; and integrating family planning and HIV.