New York, United States - Professor Babatunde Osotimehin, the Executive Director of UN Population Fund (UNFPA), on Tuesday urged member states and development partners to take quick action to facilitate universal access to reproductive health, the empowerment of women and poverty alleviation. 'We need to keep pushing to make universal access to reproductive health a reality, as well as investing in the health and rights of women and young people,' Osotimehin said at the opening of a five-day session of the UN Commission on Population and Development at the UN headquarters in New York. He noted that, 'investing in women and the youth is not an expenditure but an investment in our future,' adding that, 'some 215 million women in developing countries, who want to plan and space their births do not have access to modern contraception.'

According to the UNFPA chief, each year, 'the neglect of sexual and reproductive health results in an estimated 80 million unintended pregnancies; 22 million unsafe abortions and 358,000 deaths from maternal causes, including 47,000 deaths from unsafe abortion.'

Osotimehin also added that, 'one of the most urgent actions required is the closing of the US$24-billion gap in funding required to finance programmes to meet the needs of 1.8 billion young people and 1.8 billion women of child-bearing age globally.'

A recent report by the Office of the UN Secretary-General, stated that family planning and demographic change alone reduced poverty by one seventh in developing countries between 1960 and 2000.

It also said family planning could produce another one-seventh drop in poverty levels by 2015.

According to the report, 'if existing requirements for modern contraceptives were met, nearly 100,000 maternal deaths could be averted and unintended pregnancies could be cut by 71 per cent.'

Pana 13/04/2011