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Population Issues Overview
Extreme poverty subjects women and
men to a lack of real choices, opportunities and basic services
to improve their situations. Due to inequality and discrimination,
women suffer the most. One fourth of all women in developing
countries are adversely affected at some point in their lives
by a lack of proper maternal health care. Every minute, one
woman dies during pregnancy and birth because she did not
receive adequate care and prompt treatment. This amounts to
deadly neglect. By increasing interventions for safe motherhood,
especially emergency obstetric care, we can save the lives
of half a million women and seven million infants, and prevent
millions of women from suffering from infections, injury and
disability each year. When women are educated and healthy,
their families, communities and nations benefit.
Perhaps nowhere is the need for reproductive
health services more urgent than in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Every day, 14,000 people are newly infected and half are young
people under the age of 25. Many know little about the disease
and how the virus is transmitted. Of all groups, women and
youth are the most vulnerable. In some African countries,
teenage girls are six times more likely to be infected with
HIV than are boys of the same age. Reproductive health services
that empower women and young people with life-saving
messages and skills will help stop HIV/AIDS from spreading
and reduce further suffering and social and economic disruption.
We must also step up efforts for family
planning. Women in the developing world are having half
as many children today as they did in the 1960s but fertility
remains highest in the poorest countries due to a lack of
social services. The last two generations of women have chosen
to have smaller families and the next generation will do the
same if they have access to education and reproductive health
services. However, 350 million couples still do not have access
to a range of effective and affordable family planning services
and demand for these services is expected to increase by 40
per cent in the next 15 years.
The war on poverty will not be won unless
we direct more resources to women and reproductive
health. Developing countries that have invested in health
and education, enabling women to make their own fertility
choices, have registered faster economic growth than those
that have not. When couples can choose the number, timing
and spacing of their children, they are better able to ensure
there are enough resources for each family member to prosper
and thrive. Today the greatest deficits in access to health
services can be found in the poorest segments of the population.
By channeling resources to reproductive healthcare, we can
save lives, stabilize population growth, slow the spread of
AIDS, reduce poverty and foster gender equality.
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