MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY The Aotearoa New Zealand moblisation of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty more >>

Inclusion of sexual and reproductive health in MDGs is critical

5 May 2005

Meeting in Bangkok from 27^th-28^th April, a number of Asia-Pacific NGOs who are members of the Asia Pacific Alliance: Advancing the International Conference on Population and Development (APA/ICPD) called for sexual and reproductive health to be explicitly included in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and their monitoring framework.

The conference brought together UN agencies, financial institutions, foundations, parliamentarians, academics and environment, population, development, reproductive health and women’s NGOs from the seven countries that make up the NGO membership of APA - Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US.

The conference theme was “Sexual and Reproductive Health, HIV and the MDGs: Issues for Health and Development”. Keynote speakers included Stan Bernstein, Policy Adviser for the Millennium Project, and Frans Baneke, Chair of the European Network of NGOs (EuroNGOs).

Dr Kim Hak Su, Executive Secretary of United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), was the opening ceremony guest speaker. Dr Kim Hak Su reminded delegates of the critical relevance of the conference theme to the four billion people of the Asia Pacific region, including its 700 million young people. He noted that the epicentre of the AIDS pandemic is shifting to the Asia Pacific region, where nine million people now live with HIV/AIDS, and two people become infected with HIV every minute.

“We have a collective responsibility to foster an enabling environment for those who are especially vulnerable,” he said.

“The members of APA play an exemplary role, including advocating action to bridge existing gaps in the region’s achievement of the MDGs”.

The chair of the APA meeting, New Zealand Family Planning Executive Director Dr Gill Greer, reminded attendees that at the Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference in Bangkok in 2002, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan acknowledged that poverty cannot be eliminated without good reproductive health, as have many of the world’s leaders, and ministers at the recent Commission on the Status of Women.  The MDG Taskforce also makes a key recommendation that ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health information and services, including voluntary family planning, is essential for achieving the MDGs.

In one of the first steps towards ensuring the inclusion of universal access to sexual and reproductive health information and services in the MDGs and their monitoring framework, APA NGO members will be calling on governments to advocate to ensure sexual and reproductive health and rights issues are properly reflected within the outcome of the UN Millennium Summit Review of the Millennium Declaration and MDGs, taking place in New York 14^th – 19^th September.

Did you know that every minute around the world...
•	one woman dies from complications of pregnancy and childbirth.
•	10 teenage girls undergo an unsafe abortion.
•	13 infants under 12 months die
•	57 people catch an STI
•	11 people are infected with HIV
•	the population increases by 150 people

Family Planning Saves Lives.  Click here to find out more.   Click here for the latest headlines in International Family Planning, Population, Reproductive Health and the Environment.