World Health Day Statement

One sure way to Make Every Mother and Child Count, as the slogan for World Health Day urges us to do, is to guarantee universal access to reproductive health, as was agreed at the International Conference on Population and Development. This is particularly important for 1.3 billion young people—the largest youth generation in history.

Reproductive health is critical to the health and well-being of women and children in the developing world. If every woman had access to family planning and high-quality care during pregnancy and delivery, the number of maternal, newborn and child deaths would drop dramatically. If every woman had the knowledge and means to prevent HIV infection , the AIDS pandemic would be reversed. Empowering women and involving men is key to success.

Today on World Health Day, I urge governments to increase spending in reproductive health and to target these investments to communities where needs are highest. Providing skilled medical attendance at the time of delivery would reduce maternal deaths by nearly 75 per cent.

Providing family planning alone could reduce maternal mortality by 25 per cent. As contraceptive use rises, maternal and newborn deaths decline. Studies show that, if family planning were made available to women in India who wish to space their births, one in five child deaths could be prevented.

So, let us move from lines in speeches to budget lines. Let us scale up these cost-effective interventions that have been shown to work. Let us make reproductive health a political priority, as Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Commission for Africa and the Millennium Project have all advised. Of the half million maternal deaths each year, 95 per cent occur in Africa and Asia. In her lifetime, a woman in sub-Saharan Africa faces a 1 in 16 risk of dying during pregnancy or childbirth compared to a 1 in 3,800 for a woman in the developed world.

This is a public health crisis and a moral outrage. Far too many women are deprived of access to basic health services that are fundamental to the fulfillment of their human rights. Currently, more than 200 million women have an unmet need for safe and effective contraception. If these needs were met, unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions would plunge. Currently, 42 per cent of women in the developing world give birth without the assistance of a skilled medical professional, which puts their lives and those of their babies at risk. In every region, women face rising rates of HIV/AIDS.

UNFPA is committed to developing national capacity for reproductive health and rights and linking these services with HIV prevention. Today on World Health Day, it is time for governments to make every woman and child count by committing the resources that are needed for their health and well-being. If reproductive health services were widely available, maternal death would be as rare in Africa and Asia as it is today in the United States and Europe. The Millennium Development Goals cannot be achieved unless reproductive health is guaranteed.