Population

Deeply concerned that an estimated 358,000 women had died in 2008 from largely preventable complications relating to pregnancy and childbirth, the Commission on Population and Development concluded its forty-fourth session today by urging all Governments to redouble efforts for the elimination of preventable maternal morbidity and mortality by ensuring universal access to reproductive health, including family planning, by 2015.

Higher levels of education, particularly among girls, had a strong correlation to declining fertility and better development outcomes, delegates and experts said today as the Commission on Population and Development continued its forty-fourth session.

With more than 50,000 women dying annually from unsafe abortions, especially in Africa and South-Central Asia, Governments everywhere must make greater efforts to ensure that the old-age and widespread practice of abortion was safe, legal and available to all women and girls, today’s keynote speaker told the Commission on Population and Development as it continued its general debate.

Robust investments in family planning services could pay immense dividends in the battle to achieve development targets, delegates and experts said today as the Commission on Population and Development continued the 2011 general debate of its forty-fourth session.

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.