This year marks the 15th anniversary of Cairo. But a generation has been born into a world that still has not yet fulfilled that vision. More people than ever before on earth face a future where their place, their potential, their security is still fragile. Deep-rooted discriminations, short-term priorities and ineffective, incoherent strategies prevent us all from achieving universal access to reproductive health, gender equality and women’s empowerment. The clouds of climate change, conflict and financial crisis pose great threats.
In Nepal, about 25 percent of married women have an unmet need for family planning, which means one in five would like to use contraceptives but is prevented from doing so by economical or social considerations.
Past crises have taught us that women are being disproportionately affected, which in turn inversely impacts their children and communities. Women already represent 70 percent of the world’s absolute poor and poverty is a major determinant of the lack of access to health services, including reproductive health services and information. There is no smarter investment, with such high economic and social returns, than investing in the health and rights of adolescent girls and women.
To make greater progress, increased resources for reproductive health, including the full range of choices for voluntary family planning, are necessary. Family planning programs create conditions that enable women to enter the labor force, ensure families can devote more resources to each child, and indirectly improve family nutrition, education levels and living standards. Providing the choices as to when and how many children a couple have not only improves health outcomes but also makes economic sense. The costs of not doing so are far greater in the future.
Researchers estimate that universal access to family planning could save the lives of about 175,000 women each year. Increasing birth intervals to three years could also prevent the deaths of 1.8 million children under 5. Preventing unwanted pregnancies generates immediate cost savings for delivery and pre- and post-natal care, and for treatment of the complications of unsafe abortions. In Nepal, about 25 percent of married women have an unmet need for family planning, which means one in five would like to use contraceptives but is prevented from doing so by economical or social considerations. Despite valiant efforts such as the free delivery services introduced by the government to improve mothers’ health, every four hours a woman dies giving birth.
Over half way towards the 2015 deadline for achieving the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals, investment is needed to consolidate gains made and make the final push towards ICPDs vision. As donor countries see aid budgets under threat from the financial crisis, and as the financial crisis reaches individuals in rich and poor countries alike, now is the time to ensure that everyone counts. Unless we do it now, for the future, the challenges will only increase.
In words of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: “The global financial crisis is forcing all of us to save and cut costs where we can. But our work for the women of the world must continue undiminished. When you empower a woman, you empower a family. When you empower a woman, you change the world.”
Nepal, making its own transition, can be a model for others, if it maintains the rights enshrined in its interim constitution for social inclusion, women’s empowerment and everyone’s health. Nepal can and should be a place where everyone counts.
(Writer is UNFPA Representative for Nepal.)
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