The findings reported in "Fertility, reproductive health and development", a report issued by the United Nations Secretary-General will be discussed by the Commission on Population and Development at its forty-fourth session, held at United Nations headquarters from 11 to 15 April.

Expressing concern about the $24 billion shortfall in the amount of financing needed to implement the Programme of Action from the International Conference on Population and Development, the new head of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) called on Member States today to bolster funding for integrated sexual and reproductive health services.

Concerned that 9 million children under 5 years old died each year from largely preventable conditions, and that persistent health inequities, both among and within countries, were impeding improved health outcomes, the Commission on Population and Development today concluded its forty-third session by reaffirming the values of primary health care -– including universal access to services -- as the basis for strengthening health systems.

Despite their systematic marginalization over centuries, women formed the very foundation of the world’s economy and development, the Commission on Population and Development was told today as it debated how population and development issues contributed in turn to gender equality and women’s empowerment.

While mortality had declined and life expectancy had risen across the world -- trends underpinned by a shift in the “disease burden” from communicable to non-communicable diseases -- the HIV pandemic had halted progress and, in some regions, reversed it, health experts told the Commission on Population and Development today, as it continued its general debate.

People around the world were dying because their needs went unmet by health systems that were fragmented, broken and struggling, the Commission on Population and Development heard today as it continued its general debate on national experiences related to health, morbidity, mortality and development.

While life expectancy had risen in all regions over the past 50 years -- one major achievement of the last century -- health improvements and medical advances were not reaching huge swaths of the developing world, mandating the global community to work harder to ensure that people did not die of preventable disease, the Commission on Population and Development heard today as it opened its forty-third session under the theme of “Health, morbidity, mortality and development”.

As mortality declined in most countries during the twentieth century, life expectancy has risen in all world regions, the United Nations reports, ahead of an intergovernmental meeting on population and development next week in New York. From 47 years in 1950-1955, global life expectancy increased sharply to 68 years in 2005-2010.

3 April 2009

Economic and Social CouncilPOP/975

Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York

Commission on Population and Development

Forty-second Session

8^th Meeting (PM)

COMMISSION ON POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT CONCLUDES SESSION BY ADOPTING

GUIDELINE FOR INTERNATIONAL ACTION OVER NEXT FIVE YEARS

 

2 April 2009

Economic and Social CouncilPOP/974

Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York

Commission on Population and Development

Forty-second Session

7^th Meeting (AM)