To achieve global health and development goals, experts recommend increased investments and comprehensive interventions
The Guttmacher-Lancet Commission on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights—a collaboration of global health, development and human rights experts from around the world—called on national governments, international agencies, donors, civil society groups and other key stakeholders to commit to a new, bold agenda to achieve universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights. This agenda, presented in a new report published today in The Lancet, puts forth an evidence-based, forward-looking vision that is affordable, attainable and essential to the achievement of health, equitable development and human rights for all. It encompasses the right of all individuals to make decisions about their bodies and lives—free of stigma, discrimination and coercion—and to have access to essential sexual and reproductive health interventions.
The report was launched on May 17, 2018 in Johannesburg at an event featuring Justice Edwin Cameron, Constitutional Court of South Africa; Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet; and Julitta Onabanjo, Director for East and Southern Africa of the United Nations Population Fund.
“Gaps in sexual and reproductive health and rights worldwide take an enormous toll on individuals, communities and economies. We must not continue to tolerate this problem,” said Dr. Alex Ezeh, Commission Co-Chair and former Executive Director of the African Population and Health Research Center. “It’s time to eliminate these inequities with a comprehensive approach that doesn’t overlook critical components like access to safe and legal abortion, prevention of reproductive cancers, or treatment for infertility.”
The Commission’s report details the magnitude of sexual and reproductive health needs. Each year in developing regions:
more than 200 million women want to avoid pregnancy but are not using modern contraception
more than 45 million women receive inadequate antenatal care, or none at all
more than 30 million women deliver their babies outside of a health facility
Worldwide, each year:
25 million unsafe abortions take place
as many as 180 million couples may be affected by infertility
nearly two million people become infected with HIV
approximately 266,000 women die from cervical cancer
And at some point in their lives, about one in three women worldwide experience gender-based violence, most often from an intimate partner.
“For too long the world has accepted these stark realities as inevitable. Our report shows how they can be overcome, laying out a roadmap that countries can use to put essential services and interventions in place,” said Ann M. Starrs, Commission Co-Chair and President and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute. “We have the means and the knowledge to achieve universal sexual and reproductive health and rights. Meaningful progress is possible, it is affordable and it is vital.”
The Commission reports that meeting the need for modern contraception, safe abortion, and maternal and newborn health care in developing regions would cost just US$9 per person per year. This is an affordable investment, especially considering that half of this amount is already being spent to cover the cost of current levels of care, and it will yield enormous returns. Access to sexual and reproductive health services saves lives, improves health and well-being, promotes gender equality, and increases productivity and household income.
The report is accompanied by two commentaries welcoming this new agenda for sexual and reproductive health and rights—a joint comment from two Ministers of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole of Nigeria and Dr. Alejandro Gaviria Uribe of Colombia, as well as a joint comment from the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund, Dr. Natalia Kanem.
Courtesy: The Guttmacher-Lancet Commission