"Greater investments in health and education services for all people, in particular women, to enable the full and equal participation of women in civil, cultural, economic, political and social life are essential to achieving the objectives of the Programme of Action."

-- Preamble, Para. 2, Key Actions for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, New York, 1999.

In adopting the Millennium Development Goals, the international community has committed itself to an ambitious goal: cutting in half the number of people living in absolute poverty by 2015. To do this, world leaders have adopted specific targets for life expectancy, education, housing, gender equality, openness of trade, and environmental protection.

The MDGs are interrelated, and strategic efforts must push for progress on all targets simultaneously. They remain the starting point, and not the final steps, for eradicating poverty, safeguarding human rights and human security and achieving sustainable development.

The MDGs are also closely related to the ICPD and ICPD+5 agreements. Poverty cannot and will not be eradicated without achieving ICPD goals. Universal access to education and reproductive health care are crucial steps that can help to eradicate poverty. Reproductive rights are central to women's empowerment and gender equality and equity. Meeting these ICPD goals will pave toward achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

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Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• To halve the number of people living on less than $1 a day and the number of people living in hunger, universal access to reproductive health care for women, men and adolescents is imperative.

• The ICPD Programme of Action and ICPD+5 benchmarks aim for universal access to voluntary reproductive health education and services, including family planning and sexual health. Access to these services will give individuals and couples fundamental choices that will change the repetitive cycle of poverty. With access to family planning, women and men can decide if, when and how many children they want.

• With half the world's population under 25 years of age, investments in adolescents and youth, including education and training, reproductive health and personal safety, are critical for reducing poverty. The 1.2 billion adolescents (ages 10-19) are at a particularly critical stage of life. Targeted investments in this group's productive and reproductive options will be a critical factor in the achievement of the MDGs and a sustainable future.

• Lower fertility results in slower population growth and opens a "demographic window" of opportunity for economic growth and poverty reduction, as the ratio of dependants to working-age people declines.

• Large families dilute the assets of poorer households, and unwanted births deepen household poverty. Smaller families allow more investment in each child's education and health.

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Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

• To achieve universal primary education, the gender gap must be closed.

• The ICPD Programme of Action's goal of basic education for all boys and girls by 2015 can be supported through the empowerment of women, training teachers to be gender sensitive, promoting the value of educating girls, making schools safe, postponing early marriage and childbearing, allowing pregnant teens to continue studying, providing scholarships, providing universal access to reproductive health, and lowering fertility, morbidity and mortality rates.

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Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

• Ensuring gender equity and equality, and the empowerment of women depends in part on overcoming cultural, social and economic constraints that limit women's access to education, as well as providing universal access to reproductive health education and services that allow them to protect their health, control their fertility and develop their full potential in all aspects of public and private life.

• Removing social and family barriers to women's equal social, economic and political participation, and combating violence against women are essential.

• Reproductive health and rights – such as the right to decide on the number, timing and spacing of children, free from coercion and violence – are central to women's empowerment and gender equality, and to women's enjoyment of other human rights, including to education, health and full participation in political, economic, social and cultural life.

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Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

• A healthy mother is the first step towards a healthy child. Infant and child mortality are highest for the youngest mothers and after closely spaced births. High fertility reduces the provision of health care to children.

• Unwanted children are more likely to die than wanted ones. Providing universal access to reproductive health care will help to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

• The death of a mother increases the risk that her children will die.

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Goal 5: Improve maternal health

• The highest proportion of women's ill health burden is related to their reproductive role. Universal access to reproductive health care--including family planning; care in pregnancy, during and after childbirth; and emergency obstetric care--would reduce unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortion and maternal death, saving women's lives and the lives of their children.

• Promotion of delayed marriage reduces the risks associated with too-early childbearing. Enabling women to have fewer pregnancies reduces the lifetime risk of maternal death and illness.

• Women's empowerment will enable women to address the social conditions that endanger their health and lives.

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Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases

• Universal access to reproductive health care is critically important in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

• The ICPD notes that better information on HIV/AIDS can prevent transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

• Half of new HIV infections are among young people. Preventing infection means enabling young people to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases through access to reproductive health education and services and the development of life skills.

• Women and girls need to be empowered to refuse sex or negotiate safe sex, without coercion or fear of violence or economic loss.

• Poor countries need an adequate supply of reproductive health commodities, including male and female condoms, and strengthened systems for their supply and distribution.

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Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

• Balancing resource use and ecological requirements will depend critically on population growth, location and movements, on patterns of resource consumption, and management of waste.

• The ICPD acknowledges that rapid growth of poor rural populations puts enormous stress on local environments. Poor people need better education and health services, including universal access to reproductive health care and family planning, to improve their health and well-being.

• Appropriate policies will reduce urban migration and promote sustainable rural population growth.

• The sustainable improvement of the lives of slum and shanty dwellers will depend on policies to address high urban growth rates, which result from both natural increase and migration.

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Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

• Population and reproductive health programmes have lagged in the least-developed countries, especially those with high levels of mortality and unwanted fertility. These countries will benefit most from higher international assistance and debt relief, as well as domestic resources for health and education. They need universal access to reproductive health care coupled with affordable prices for essential drugs for treating HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and a secure supply of contraceptives and other reproductive health commodities.

• The ICPD called on international donors to provide one third of the support needed for reproductive health programmes in developing countries worldwide: $5.7 billion (of the $17 billion total requirement) in 2000, rising to $7.2 billion by 2015. Current international support is less than half of this required level.