Sexual and Reproductive Health for All: 20 Years of The Global Strategy

Thirty years back, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo, Egypt, highlighted the right of all individuals to achieve the greatest requirement of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). In 2004, WHO released a reproductive health technique – validated by 191 Member States at the Fifty-seventh World Health Assembly – that reinforced the midpoint of SRHR to societies and economies (Resolution WHA57.12). These frameworks are grounded in gender equality and acknowledge the changeless value of sexual health in health for all.

WHO scientists dealt with Member States, civil society and communities throughout all regions to operationalize a Global Strategy to cover the 5 key pillars for improving SRHR:

– improving antenatal, perinatal, postpartum and newborn care

– supplying family planning services

– eliminating unsafe abortion

– combatting sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

– promoting sexual health.

Resolution WHA57.12 additional informed SRHR policies and assisting documents in a number of regions and Member States. For example, Latin America’s 2013 Montevideo Consensus and Africa’s Maputo Strategy from 2016 (building upon the initial 2006 plan) both include language and concepts strengthening and upholding SRHR.

” The worldwide method is the foundational policy file that centres WHO’s required for sexual and reproductive health to date,” said Dr Pascale Allotey, Director of the UN Special Programme on Human Reproduction (HRP) and WHO’s Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health. “The text remains essential in contributing to assisting research concerns and working with countries to develop useful resources to make sure thorough SRHR throughout the life course.”

Significant progress has been made over the last 20 years within each of the 5 pillars, including these examples.

– The Global method happened as the world was reeling from the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Today, the number of individuals acquiring HIV has fallen by 38% since 2010 alone, due in part to the Strategy’s emphasis on eliminating STIs including HIV.

– Since March 2022, 60% of WHO Member States have consisted of the human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV) in their regular immunization schedules, significantly advancing efforts to get rid of cervical cancer as a public health hazard.

– Prioritizing family preparation services and contraception gain access to led to WHO’s Family planning: a worldwide handbook for providers reference guide, which has actually been distributed over a million times. Accordingly, the percentage of women using contemporary contraceptive techniques increased from 467 million in 1990 to 874 million in 2022, while a wider range of contraceptive options is now offered.

A 2020 study discovered that there has been an around the world decrease in unexpected pregnancy. Furthermore, evidence-based medical abortion routines have enhanced global access to abortion, and over 60 nations have actually liberalized abortion laws in the past thirty years in line with proof on the importance of such efforts to ensure the health of women and adolescent women.

Professor Kate Gilmore, co-chair of the Gender and Human Rights Advisory Panel of HRP, credited the Strategy and WHO for helping produce crucial scientific proof on SRHR that has actually contributed to a few of these shifts. “Some of the fantastic advances that we have actually seen – including the method civil society has actually taken up the cause to argue for access to safe and legal abortion – are due to the Strategy and the methodical generation of evidence over these past 20 years,” she stated.

Despite early gains, however, current years have seen indications of stagnation. From 2000 to 2020, the maternal death rate come by 34% worldwide – but a 2023 report found that development has actually mainly stalled since. The uneasy trend was highlighted throughout a recent occasion showcasing worldwide datasets on the development of SRHR since ICPD. High maternal mortality rates persist in a couple of countries and sexual health concerns, such as endometriosis, infertility and sexual erectile dysfunction, are frequently overlooked or normalized.

Dr Allotey and Dr Manjulaa Narasimhan, researcher at WHO and HRP, noted in a recent commentary in the WHO Bulletin that the SRHR program stays incomplete and in some circumstances has actually regressed due to geopolitical stress, economic downturns, the worldwide food crisis, climate modification, humanitarian crises and COVID-19.

There are emerging opportunities to catalyse progress – for instance, by improving human rights-based techniques in SRHR and embedding concepts like non-discrimination, including in crisis scenarios. Improving health systems with a primary health-care approach can improve equity and expand access to detailed SRHR services. New technologies and alternative service delivery techniques can improve SRHR by broadening access, option and autonomy.

Other future-looking focus locations within SRHR consist of research study on the transformative function of expert system and ingenious birth control approaches, further work on reinforcing health systems, and the withstanding prioritization of positive pregnancy and childbirth experiences.

At a broader level, Dr Allotey called for a continued focus on the foundational value of SRHR. “Sexual and reproductive health need to never ever be relegated to the margins of healthcare, but acknowledged as important for the general well-being of people and the communities in which they live,” she stated.