Breaking the cycle of poverty in achieving the MDGs: investing in reproductive health and rights.

• Author: Obaid, Thoraya Ahmed
• Position: Millennium Development Goals

A bold and ambitious agenda was set forth in the Millennium Development Goals to raise the quality of life of all individuals and promote human development. The MDGs represent our collective aspirations for a better life and provide a minimum road map on how to get there. However, they can only be achieved if Governments, civil society and international agencies work together to address population issues as a development priority, in particular to secure the reproductive health and rights of people, especially the poor and particularly women. This vision is contained in the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which was adopted by 179 Governments in 1979. The ICPD goal of universal access to reproductive health by 2015 is a target in the MDG monitoring framework, under MDG 5, to improve maternal health. Access to reproductive health can have a powerful impact on development, not only to improve maternal health but also to achieve all the MDGs.

Link among poverty, reproductive health and rights. Worldwide, illnesses and deaths from poor reproductive health account for one fifth of the global burden of diseases and nearly one third for all women. Every year, more than half a million women die during childbirth, with more than 95 per cent of them in Africa and Asia. Every minute, four people are newly infected with HIV and 2.1 million die of AIDS each year.

While devastating, these global statistics do not fully convey the true tragedy to a family when a mother dies during childbirth or when a child loses a family member to AIDS. This is a double tragedy because we know how to prevent these deaths. Effective interventions exist. Yet today, poor people have the least access to education and health care, including reproductive health, and this keeps them trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and poor health, which often runs from one generation to the next. It is this poverty trap that must be broken if we are to achieve the MDGs. Investments in sexual and reproductive health play a significant role.

Benefits of investing in reproductive health and rights. Good reproductive health enables couples and individuals to lead healthier, more productive lives and, in turn, make greater contributions to their household incomes and to national savings. The health benefits of these investments are well known and documented. They are substantial. They include the prevention of deaths due to HIV/AIDS...