“Ensuring every pregnancy wanted, every birth safe, every newborn healthy: no woman should die giving life,” the declaration committed.
Chairman of the Constituent Assembly Subas Nembang attended the closing ceremony of the conference in the evening at the Soaltee Crowne Plaza as the chief guest.
“Each US $ one million shortfall in contraceptive fundings will cause an estimated 360,000 more unwanted pregnancies, 150,000 more additional induced abortions, 800 maternal deaths, 11,000 infant deaths and 14,000 additional deaths of children under five,” chairman Nembang said seeking continual donor support for reproductive health.
Forty-six parliamentarians-some of whom were ministers-policy makers and media professionals from the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) countries agreed on the 10-point declaration also expressing commitment to advocate for greater awareness and a stronger commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on significantly reducing maternal mortality rate set by the United Nations.
The United Nations had in 1990 set up eight different international development goals to try to attain by 2015 among which the fifth goal aims to reduce maternal mortality rate in all countries by three quarters with 1990 taken as the base year.
The conference organized by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Asia and the Pacific Regional Office in collaboration with the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) also had resource persons from Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, Philippines, and several high ranking officials of the UNFPA.
The delegates from SAARC countries, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia and Philippines also made separate country presentations regarding the status of reproductive health using different indicators on the first two days of deliberations during the conference that was inaugurated by President Ram Baran Yadav on Tuesday.
The SAARC nations also presented separate short-term individual action plans, which they committed to continue in the future, to advocate for reproductive health services and commodity security earlier on Thursday before signing on the joint declaration.
The delegates from the different countries shared their bitter sweet experiences and lessons learnt from success and failures while working in the field of reproductive health and took inspiration from the success stories of other countries during the three-day conference.
The regional conference on reproductive health and commodity security was the first to be held in the SAARC region.
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