Public Choices, Private Decisions: Sexual and Reproductive Health and the
Millennium Development Goals confirms that combating HIV/AIDS, promoting gender
equality, improving maternal and child health, and fighting poverty are all
greatly helped by improving the delivery of sexual and reproductive health
services in developing nations.
This is the current situation:
- Millions of women lack access to family planning services they need and
want. The unmet need for contraception is especially acute among adolescents in
the developing world, averaging two to four times that of the general
population.
- 1 in 16 women in sub-Saharan Africa dies from complications of pregnancy
and childbirth. This compares with 1 in every 2,800 in highly-developed
countries.
- Providing safe, effective, voluntary family planning services prevents
death and disability, spurs development, and fights poverty.
- Family planning and obstetric care could radically reduce maternal deaths
and injuries.
- Involving men in sexual and reproductive health as clients, partners and
agents of social change is crucial to promoting healthier lives for women and
girls, gender equality and men's health.
- The financial resources needed to meet the developing world's sexual and
reproductive health needs amount to US36 billion per year by 2015.
The report outlines a number of recommendations to integrate sexual and
reproductive health into development strategies, including:
- incorporating sexual and reproductive health in both national poverty
reduction strategies and strengthened health systems
- integrating, monitoring and evaluating sexual and reproductive health
within health systems
- allocating enough funds for commodities, supplies and logistics while
strengthening health systems and
- meeting the needs of special populations, particularly young people, the
poor and victims of humanitarian crisis.
The UN Millennium Project calls for a massive scale up and expansion of
family planning, maternal health, and HIV/AIDS prevention efforts throughout the
developing world by mobilising political will, institutional capacity and
technical and financial resources.
The Public Choices, Private Decisions: Sexual and Reproductive Health and the
Millenium Development Goals report can be downloaded from the link below:
http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/MP_Sexual_Health_screen-final.pdf
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