People who survive crises such as armed conflict and natural disaster need food, water, shelter and health services including reproductive health care. During extreme situations, refugees, displaced persons and others affected by these emergency conditions are in desperate need of reproductive health services because health risks increase and health facilities are often damaged or destroyed. Giving birth can be a matter of life and death.

Women and children account for more than 75 percent of the millions of refugees and displaced persons worldwide.

Twenty-five percent are women of reproductive age and one in five is likely to be pregnant. Complications of pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death and disability among refugee women of childbearing age. In emergencies, rape and sexual violence rates increase dramatically, as do miscarriages and infections.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) supports early and effective action and cooperates with governments, other United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to meet emergency reproductive health needs. Such needs include care during and after pregnancy and childbirth; family planning information and services; the prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS; and the prevention and treatment of sexual and gender-based violence.

The United Nations Population Fund has been expanding its capacity to respond to emergencies in countries since the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. At the conference, 179 governments issued an explicit mandate to provide reproductive health services to vulnerable groups such as refugees and the internally displaced.

After seven years of work in this area, UNFPA has made significant strides in raising awareness about reproductive health needs in emergencies, in working with partners to develop technical standards in the area, and in improving the capacities of UNFPA country offices around the world to respond to emergency situations:

• Since 1994, UNFPA has supported emergency reproductive health projects in more than 50 countries and territories.
  
  
• In 2000, UNFPA dispatched 35 shipments of emergency reproductive health equipment and supplies to 20 countries and territories.
  
  
• A rapid response fund enables UNFPA to mount a quick response to emergencies, especially in the initial stages.

Early intervention can drastically reduce an emergency's overall health impact by curbing disease and building medical capacity to enable a return to normal life. An effective reproductive health programme safeguards the basic human rights of displaced people-the rights to life and health; to marry and determine the number, timing and spacing of children; and the right to liberty and security of the person, including freedom from sexual violence or coercion.