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

Thirty years ago, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo, Egypt, underscored the right of all individuals to attain the greatest standard of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). In 2004, WHO published a reproductive health strategy – ratified 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 recognize the unvarying value of sexual health in attaining health for all.

WHO researchers worked with Member States, civil society and communities across all regions to operationalize a Global Strategy to cover the five essential pillars for enhancing SRHR:

– improving antenatal, perinatal, postpartum and newborn care

– offering household preparation services

– removing hazardous abortion

– fighting sexually transferred infections (STIs).

– promoting sexual health.

Resolution WHA57.12 additional notified SRHR policies and assisting files in several areas 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 consist of language and ideas strengthening and maintaining SRHR.

” The worldwide strategy is the foundational policy file that centres WHO’s mandate 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 directing research priorities and dealing with countries to develop useful resources to make sure detailed SRHR across the life course.”

Significant progress has been made over the last twenty years within each of the five pillars, these examples.

– The Global strategy came about as the world was reeling from the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Today, the number of individuals getting HIV has fallen by 38% considering that 2010 alone, due in part to the Strategy’s focus on removing STIs consisting of HIV.

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

– Prioritizing family planning services and birth control access led to WHO’s Family planning: an international handbook for service providers recommendation guide, which has been shared over a million times. Accordingly, the proportion of ladies utilizing modern-day contraceptive techniques increased from 467 million in 1990 to 874 million in 2022, while a wider variety of contraceptive alternatives is now offered.

A 2020 study found that there has actually been an around the world decline in unintentional pregnancy. Furthermore, evidence-based medical abortion programs have improved global access to abortion, and over 60 nations have actually liberalized abortion laws in the previous thirty years in line with proof on the importance of such efforts to ensure the health of women and teen ladies.

Professor Kate Gilmore, co-chair of the Gender and Human Rights Advisory Panel of HRP, credited the Strategy and WHO for helping produce important scientific evidence on SRHR that has actually contributed to a few of these shifts. “A few of the terrific advances that we have actually seen – consisting of the method civil society has actually used 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 previous twenty years,” she stated.

Despite early gains, nevertheless, recent years have actually seen signs of stagnation. From 2000 to 2020, the maternal mortality rate come by 34% worldwide – but a 2023 report found that development has mostly stalled given that. The worrisome pattern was highlighted during a current occasion showcasing worldwide datasets on the advancement of SRHR because ICPD. High maternal death rates persist in a couple of nations and sexual health problems, such as endometriosis, infertility and sexual erectile dysfunction, are typically neglected or stabilized.

Dr Allotey and Dr Manjulaa Narasimhan, researcher at WHO and HRP, kept in mind in a recent commentary in the WHO Bulletin that the SRHR agenda stays unfinished and in some circumstances has fallen back due to geopolitical stress, economic declines, the international food crisis, climate modification, humanitarian crises and COVID-19.

There are emerging opportunities to catalyse progress – for instance, by enhancing human rights-based approaches in SRHR and embedding concepts like non-discrimination, consisting of in crisis circumstances. Improving health systems with a main health-care approach can improve equity and broaden access to thorough SRHR services. New innovations and alternative service shipment methods can improve SRHR by broadening gain access to, option and autonomy.

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

At a wider level, Dr Allotey required a continued emphasis on the foundational value of SRHR. “Sexual and reproductive health must never ever be relegated to the margins of health care, however acknowledged as critical for the total wellness of people and the communities in which they live,” she stated.