CHAPTER 5

Reproductive rights and reproductive health

SUMMARY

T he Programme of Action called on countries to ensure that universal voluntary access to a full range
of reproductive health-care information and services is achieved by 2015, recognizing also that
sexual health is part of reproductive health. Reproductive rights were defined as the right and freedom of
couples and individuals to make reproductive decisions free from coercion, discrimination and violence.
Recognizing family planning as a means rather than a demographic end in itself, the Programme of
Action emphasized that family planning programmes must enable couples and individuals to decide freely
and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have in hand the information and means
to do so. At the time of the Cairo Conference, HIV and AIDS were not high on the political agenda and
were seen mostly in the context of sexually transmitted infections. Thus, the Programme of Action called
for preventing, reducing the incidence of, and providing treatment for sexually transmitted diseases,
including HIV and AIDS. It highlighted the relationship between human sexuality and gender relations,
calling for equity and mutual respect between the genders regarding responsible sexuality. The Cairo
Declaration called particular attention to the reproductive health needs of adolescents and urged that they
be actively involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation of development activities concerning
reproductive health, prevention of early pregnancies, sexuality education and prevention of HIV and
AIDS.
Since 1994, reproductive rights and reproductive health have been a highly recurrent theme in the
Commission. Two entire resolutions were devoted to the topic in 2002 and 2011, and reproductive rights
and reproductive health were prominent in resolutions addressing other issues as well. The Commission
has also expanded the linkages between reproductive health and reproductive rights and other topics
related to population and development. For example, the Commission has focused repeatedly on the
importance of sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights for poverty elimination. Resolutions
have also recognized linkages between sexual and reproductive health and HIV, migration, education and
gender equality, and have underscored the importance of addressing those linkages as part of poverty
reduction strategies.
Resolutions have gone beyond the Programme of Action by identifying the health-care needs,
including for sexual and reproductive health, of special population groups, such as international migrants,
urban and rural residents and people affected by humanitarian crises. They have called on Governments,
in collaboration with civil society and international organizations, to respond to those needs. In 2012, the
Commission reiterated the need for Governments to ensure that all women and men have access to
comprehensive information about, and access to, a choice of the widest possible range of safe, effective,
affordable and acceptable modern methods of family planning, including long-acting contraceptive
methods and male and female condoms. The resolution of the forty-sixth session in 2013 went further,
calling on Member States to address the consequences of sexual violence and to provide emergency
contraception and safe abortion in circumstances where such services are permitted by national law.
Maternal health, mortality, and morbidity are also recurrent themes, including in the resolution of
the forty-fourth session, which encouraged Governments to prioritize universal access to sexual and
reproductive health to eliminate preventable maternal mortality and morbidity. While the Programme of
Action emphasized that early marriage and early motherhood could severely curtail educational and
employment opportunities, resolutions of the forty-second and forty-fourth sessions further emphasized
that underage and forced marriages and early pregnancies increased the risk of maternal mortality and

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Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

morbidity. The Commission also expanded attention to the rights of adolescents and youth to have control
over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and
reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence. The Commission pushed forward the
language on HIV and AIDS, recognizing the epidemic as a global health emergency, and calling on
Governments to provide universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, free of
discrimination and with a gender perspective, to meet the goal of halting and reversing the spread of HIV
and AIDS by 2015. Resolutions also recommended that policy and programme linkages and coordination
between HIV and AIDS and sexual and reproductive health should be strengthened and included in
national development plans and poverty reduction strategies.

EXCERPTS FROM THE PROGRAMME OF ACTION

Chapter VII: Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Health§
A. Reproductive rights and reproductive health

Objectives
7.5. The objectives are:
(a) To ensure that comprehensive and factual information and a full range of reproductive health-care
services, including family planning, are accessible, affordable, acceptable and convenient to all users;
(b) To enable and support responsible voluntary decisions about child-bearing and methods of family
planning of their choice, as well as other methods of their choice for regulation of fertility which are not against the
law and to have the information, education and means to do so;
(c) To meet changing reproductive health needs over the life cycle and to do so in ways sensitive to the
diversity of circumstances of local communities.

Actions
7.6. All countries should strive to make accessible through the primary health-care system, reproductive health to
all individuals of appropriate ages as soon as possible and no later than the year 2015. Reproductive health care in
the context of primary health care should, inter alia, include: family-planning counselling, information, education,
communication and services; education and services for prenatal care, safe delivery and post-natal care, especially
breast-feeding and infant and women’s health care; prevention and appropriate treatment of infertility; abortion as
specified in paragraph 8.25, including prevention of abortion and the management of the consequences of abortion;
treatment of reproductive tract infections; sexually transmitted diseases and other reproductive health conditions;
and information, education and counselling, as appropriate, on human sexuality, reproductive health and responsible
parenthood. Referral for family-planning services and further diagnosis and treatment for complications of
pregnancy, delivery and abortion, infertility, reproductive tract infections, breast cancer and cancers of the
reproductive system, sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS should always be available, as required.
Active discouragement of harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation, should also be an integral component
of primary health care, including reproductive health-care programmes.
7.7. Reproductive health-care programmes should be designed to serve the needs of women, including
adolescents, and must involve women in the leadership, planning, decision-making, management, implementation,
organization and evaluation of services. Governments and other organizations should take positive steps to include
women at all levels of the health-care system.


§
The Holy See expressed a general reservation on this chapter. The reservation is to be interpreted in terms of the
statement made by the representative of the Holy See at the 14th plenary meeting, on 13 September 1994.

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 Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

7.8. Innovative programmes must be developed to make information, counselling and services for reproductive
health accessible to adolescents and adult men. Such programmes must both educate and enable men to share more
equally in family planning and in domestic and child-rearing responsibilities and to accept the major responsibility
for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. Programmes must reach men in their workplaces, at home and
where they gather for recreation. Boys and adolescents, with the support and guidance of their parents, and in line
with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, should also be reached through schools, youth organizations and
wherever they congregate. Voluntary and appropriate male methods for contraception, as well as for the prevention
of sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS, should be promoted and made accessible with adequate
information and counselling.
7.9. Governments should promote much greater community participation in reproductive health-care services by
decentralizing the management of public health programmes and by forming partnerships in cooperation with local
non-governmental organizations and private health-care providers. All types of non-governmental organizations,
including local women’s groups, trade unions, cooperatives, youth programmes and religious groups, should be
encouraged to become involved in the promotion of better reproductive health.
7.10. Without jeopardizing international support for programmes in developing countries, the international
community should, upon request, give consideration to the training, technical assistance, short-term contraceptive
supply needs and the needs of the countries in transition from centrally managed to market economies, where
reproductive health is poor and in some cases deteriorating. Those countries, at the same time, must themselves give
higher priority to reproductive health services, including a comprehensive range of contraceptive means, and must
address their current reliance on abortion for fertility regulation by meeting the need of women in those countries for
better information and more choices on an urgent basis.
7.11. Migrants and displaced persons in many parts of the world have limited access to reproductive health care
and may face specific serious threats to their reproductive health and rights. Services must be particularly sensitive
to the needs of individual women and adolescents and responsive to their often powerless situation, with particular
attention to those who are victims of sexual violence.

B. Family planning
Objectives
7.14. The objectives are:
(a) To help couples and individuals meet their reproductive goals in a framework that promotes optimum
health, responsibility and family well-being, and respects the dignity of all persons and their right to choose the
number, spacing and timing of the birth of their children;
(b) To prevent unwanted pregnancies and reduce the incidence of high-risk pregnancies and morbidity and
mortality;
(c) To make quality family-planning services affordable, acceptable and accessible to all who need and
want them, while maintaining confidentiality;
(d) To improve the quality of family-planning advice, information, education, communication, counselling
and services;
(e) To increase the participation and sharing of responsibility of men in the actual practice of family
planning;
(f) To promote breast-feeding to enhance birth spacing.
Actions
7.15. Governments and the international community should use the full means at their disposal to support the
principle of voluntary choice in family planning.
7.16. All countries should, over the next several years, assess the extent of national unmet need for good-quality
family-planning services and its integration in the reproductive health context, paying particular attention to the
most vulnerable and underserved groups in the population. All countries should take steps to meet the family-
planning needs of their populations as soon as possible and should, in all cases by the year 2015, seek to provide

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Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

universal access to a full range of safe and reliable family-planning methods and to related reproductive health
services which are not against the law. The aim should be to assist couples and individuals to achieve their
reproductive goals and give them the full opportunity to exercise the right to have children by choice.
7.17. Governments at all levels are urged to institute systems of monitoring and evaluation of user-centred services
with a view to detecting, preventing and controlling abuses by family-planning managers and providers and to
ensure a continuing improvement in the quality of services. To this end, Governments should secure conformity to
human rights and to ethical and professional standards in the delivery of family planning and related reproductive
health services aimed at ensuring responsible, voluntary and informed consent and also regarding service provision.
In-vitro fertilization techniques should be provided in accordance with appropriate ethical guidelines and medical
standards.
7.18. Non-governmental organizations should play an active role in mobilizing community and family support, in
increasing access and acceptability of reproductive health services including family planning, and cooperate with
Governments in the process of preparation and provision of care, based on informed choice, and in helping to
monitor public- and private-sector programmes, including their own.
7.19. As part of the effort to meet unmet needs, all countries should seek to identify and remove all the major
remaining barriers to the utilization of family-planning services. Some of those barriers are related to the
inadequacy, poor quality and cost of existing family-planning services. It should be the goal of public, private and
non-governmental family-planning organizations to remove all programme-related barriers to family-planning use
by the year 2005 through the redesign or expansion of information and services and other ways to increase the
ability of couples and individuals to make free and informed decisions about the number, spacing and timing of
births and protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases.
7.20. Specifically, Governments should make it easier for couples and individuals to take responsibility for their
own reproductive health by removing unnecessary legal, medical, clinical and regulatory barriers to information and
to access to family-planning services and methods.
7.21. All political and community leaders are urged to play a strong, sustained and highly visible role in promoting
and legitimizing the provision and use of family-planning and reproductive health services. Governments at all
levels are urged to provide a climate that is favourable to good-quality public and private family-planning and
reproductive health information and services through all possible channels. Finally, leaders and legislators at all
levels must translate their public support for reproductive health, including family planning, into adequate
allocations of budgetary, human and administrative resources to help meet the needs of all those who cannot pay the
full cost of services.
7.22. Governments are encouraged to focus most of their efforts towards meeting their population and development
objectives through education and voluntary measures rather than schemes involving incentives and disincentives.
7.23. In the coming years, all family-planning programmes must make significant efforts to improve quality of
care. Among other measures, programmes should:
(a) Recognize that appropriate methods for couples and individuals vary according to their age, parity,
family-size preference and other factors, and ensure that women and men have information and access to the widest
possible range of safe and effective family-planning methods in order to enable them to exercise free and informed
choice;
(b) Provide accessible, complete and accurate information about various family-planning methods,
including their health risks and benefits, possible side effects and their effectiveness in the prevention of the spread
of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases;
(c) Make services safer, affordable, more convenient and accessible for clients and ensure, through
strengthened logistical systems, a sufficient and continuous supply of essential high-quality contraceptives. Privacy
and confidentiality should be ensured;
(d) Expand and upgrade formal and informal training in sexual and reproductive health care and family
planning for all health-care providers, health educators and managers, including training in interpersonal
communications and counselling;
(e) Ensure appropriate follow-up care, including treatment for side effects of contraceptive use;

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 Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

(f) Ensure availability of related reproductive health services on site or through a strong referral
mechanism;
(g) In addition to quantitative measures of performance, give more emphasis to qualitative ones that take
into account the perspectives of current and potential users of services through such means as effective management
information systems and survey techniques for the timely evaluation of services;
(h) Family-planning and reproductive health programmes should emphasize breast-feeding education and
support services, which can simultaneously contribute to birth spacing, better maternal and child health and higher
child survival.
7.24. Governments should take appropriate steps to help women avoid abortion, which in no case should be
promoted as a method of family planning, and in all cases provide for the humane treatment and counselling of
women who have had recourse to abortion.
7.25. In order to meet the substantial increase in demand for contraceptives over the next decade and beyond, the
international community should move, on an immediate basis, to establish an efficient coordination system and
global, regional and subregional facilities for the procurement of contraceptives and other commodities essential to
reproductive health programmes of developing countries and countries with economies in transition. The
international community should also consider such measures as the transfer of technology to developing countries to
enable them to produce and distribute high-quality contraceptives and other commodities essential to reproductive
health services, in order to strengthen the self-reliance of those countries. At the request of the countries concerned,
the World Health Organization should continue to provide advice on the quality, safety and efficacy of family-
planning methods.
7.26. Provision of reproductive health-care services should not be confined to the public sector but should involve
the private sector and non-governmental organizations, in accordance with the needs and resources of their
communities, and include, where appropriate, effective strategies for cost recovery and service delivery, including
social marketing and community-based services. Special efforts should be made to improve accessibility through
outreach services.

C. Sexually transmitted diseases and prevention of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

Objective
7.29. The objective is to prevent, reduce the incidence of, and provide treatment for, sexually transmitted diseases,
including HIV/AIDS, and the complications of sexually transmitted diseases such as infertility, with special
attention to girls and women.

Actions
7.30. Reproductive health programmes should increase their efforts to prevent, detect and treat sexually transmitted
diseases and other reproductive tract infections, especially at the primary health-care level. Special outreach efforts
should be made to those who do not have access to reproductive health-care programmes.
7.31. All health-care providers, including all family-planning providers, should be given specialized training in the
prevention and detection of, and counselling on, sexually transmitted diseases, especially infections in women and
youth, including HIV/AIDS.
7.32. Information, education and counselling for responsible sexual behaviour and effective prevention of sexually
transmitted diseases, including HIV, should become integral components of all reproductive and sexual health
services.
7.33. Promotion and the reliable supply and distribution of high-quality condoms should become integral
components of all reproductive health-care services. All relevant international organizations, especially the World
Health Organization, should significantly increase their procurement. Governments and the international community
should provide all means to reduce the spread and the rate of transmission of HIV/AIDS infection.

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Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

D. Human sexuality and gender relations

Objectives
7.36. The objectives are:
(a) To promote adequate development of responsible sexuality, permitting relations of equity and mutual
respect between the genders and contributing to improving the quality of life of individuals;
(b) To ensure that women and men have access to the information, education and services needed to
achieve good sexual health and exercise their reproductive rights and responsibilities.

Actions
7.37. Support should be given to integral sexual education and services for young people, with the support and
guidance of their parents and in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, that stress responsibility of
males for their own sexual health and fertility and that help them exercise those responsibilities. Educational efforts
should begin within the family unit, in the community and in the schools at an appropriate age, but must also reach
adults, in particular men, through non-formal education and a variety of community-based efforts.
7.38. In the light of the urgent need to prevent unwanted pregnancies, the rapid spread of AIDS and other sexually
transmitted diseases, and the prevalence of sexual abuse and violence, Governments should base national policies on
a better understanding of the need for responsible human sexuality and the realities of current sexual behaviour.
7.39. Active and open discussion of the need to protect women, youth and children from any abuse, including
sexual abuse, exploitation, trafficking and violence, must be encouraged and supported by educational programmes
at both national and community levels. Governments should set the necessary conditions and procedures to
encourage victims to report violations of their rights. Laws addressing those concerns should be enacted where they
do not exist, made explicit, strengthened and enforced, and appropriate rehabilitation services provided.
Governments should also prohibit the production and the trade of child pornography.
7.40. Governments and communities should urgently take steps to stop the practice of female genital mutilation and
protect women and girls from all such similar unnecessary and dangerous practices. Steps to eliminate the practice
should include strong community outreach programmes involving village and religious leaders, education and
counselling about its impact on girls’ and women’s health, and appropriate treatment and rehabilitation for girls and
women who have suffered mutilation. Services should include counselling for women and men to discourage the
practice.

E. Adolescents
Objectives
7.44. The objectives are:
(a) To address adolescent sexual and reproductive health issues, including unwanted pregnancy, unsafe
abortion1 and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, through the promotion of responsible and healthy
reproductive and sexual behaviour, including voluntary abstinence, and the provision of appropriate services and
counselling specifically suitable for that age group;
(b) To substantially reduce all adolescent pregnancies.
Actions
7.45. Recognizing the rights, duties and responsibilities of parents and other persons legally responsible for
adolescents to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the adolescent, appropriate direction
and guidance in sexual and reproductive matters, countries must ensure that the programmes and attitudes of health-
care providers do not restrict the access of adolescents to appropriate services and the information they need,
including on sexually transmitted diseases and sexual abuse. In doing so, and in order to, inter alia, address sexual
abuse, these services must safeguard the rights of adolescents to privacy, confidentiality, respect and informed
consent, respecting cultural values and religious beliefs. In this context, countries should, where appropriate, remove
legal, regulatory and social barriers to reproductive health information and care for adolescents.

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 Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

7.46. Countries, with the support of the international community, should protect and promote the rights of
adolescents to reproductive health education, information and care and greatly reduce the number of adolescent
pregnancies.
7.47. Governments, in collaboration with non-governmental organizations, are urged to meet the special needs of
adolescents and to establish appropriate programmes to respond to those needs. Such programmes should include
support mechanisms for the education and counselling of adolescents in the areas of gender relations and equality,
violence against adolescents, responsible sexual behaviour, responsible family-planning practice, family life,
reproductive health, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV infection and AIDS prevention. Programmes for the
prevention and treatment of sexual abuse and incest and other reproductive health services should be provided. Such
programmes should provide information to adolescents and make a conscious effort to strengthen positive social and
cultural values. Sexually active adolescents will require special family-planning information, counselling and
services, and those who become pregnant will require special support from their families and community during
pregnancy and early child care. Adolescents must be fully involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation
of such information and services with proper regard for parental guidance and responsibilities.
7.48. Programmes should involve and train all who are in a position to provide guidance to adolescents concerning
responsible sexual and reproductive behaviour, particularly parents and families, and also communities, religious
institutions, schools, the mass media and peer groups. Governments and non-governmental organizations should
promote programmes directed to the education of parents, with the objective of improving the interaction of parents
and children to enable parents to comply better with their educational duties to support the process of maturation of
their children, particularly in the areas of sexual behaviour and reproductive health.
___________
1
Unsafe abortion is defined as a procedure for terminating an unwanted pregnancy either by person lacking the necessary skills or in an
environment lacking the minimal medical standards or both (based on World Health Organization, The Prevention and Management of
Unsafe Abortion, Report of a Technical Working Group, Geneva, April 1992 (WHO/MSM/92.5).

EXCERPTS FROM RESOLUTIONS AND ENTIRE RESOLUTIONS

Entire resolutions: 
ƒ Resolution 2002/1 – Reproductive rights and reproductive health, including human immunodeficiency
virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS)
ƒ Resolution 2011/1 – Fertility, reproductive health and development
†
Resolution 1996/2
Follow-up to the International Conference on Population and Development

[…]
10. Emphasizes the importance of information, education and communication as a strategy for furthering
follow-up action on the International Conference on Population and Development, particularly in the areas of
reproductive rights and reproductive health, and urges the Population Division to highlight the efforts of
Governments in this regard in relevant reports prepared for the Commission;
11. Welcomes the encouraging evidence of actions being undertaken by Governments, international
organizations and the non-governmental sector in response to the challenges of the Programme of Action of the
Conference related to reproductive rights and reproductive health, and stresses the need for such action to be
accelerated and widened, in particular the need to mobilize additional financial resources, as called for in the
Programme of Action;
[…]


†This resolution was recommended by the Commission on Population and Development to the Economic and Social
Council for adoption and was subsequently adopted by the Council.

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Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

Resolution 2002/1
Reproductive rights and reproductive health, including human immunodeficiency virus/acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS)

The Commission on Population and Development,

Reaffirming the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development,1 in
particular those recommendations relating to reproductive rights and reproductive health,
Reaffirming also the key actions for the further implementation of the Programme of Action of the
International Conference on Population and Development,2 in particular those relating to reproductive rights and
reproductive health,3
Reaffirming further the Beijing Platform for Action4 and the further actions and initiatives to implement the
Beijing Declaration5 and the Platform for Action adopted at the twenty-third special session of the General
Assembly,6 in particular those recommendations relating to reproductive rights and reproductive health,
Bearing in mind the goals and objectives of the United Nations Millennium Declaration7 and the outcome of
other major United Nations conferences and summits and their reviews, in particular on population and
development,
Bearing in mind also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights8 and the Declaration of Commitment on
HIV/AIDS,9
Recalling that the theme for the thirty-fifth session of the Commission on Population and Development was
“Reproductive rights and reproductive health, with special reference to human immunodeficiency virus/acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS)”,
1. Requests the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United
Nations Secretariat to continue its research and requests the United Nations Population Fund to continue its
programming on reproductive rights and reproductive health, in close collaboration with each other and with all
other relevant funds, programmes and agencies of the United Nations system;
2. Also requests that the Population Division, in collaboration with the Joint United Nations Programme
on Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) (UNAIDS) and other
relevant funds, programmes and agencies, strengthen its work on the demographic aspects and impact of human
immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS);
3. Further requests that the Population Division incorporate the findings from this and other relevant
research on reproductive rights and reproductive health, including the interrelationship with HIV/AIDS, in its
contribution to the next review and appraisal of the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International
Conference on Population and Development1 scheduled for 2004 and, to the extent appropriate, to the annual
reviews of the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS9 as well as to any other relevant review processes.

__________
1
Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5-13 September 1994 (United Nations publication,
Sales No. E.95.XIII.18), chap. I, resolution 1, annex.
2
General Assembly resolution S-21/2, annex.
3
Ibid., sect. IV.
4
Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4-15 September 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.13),
chap. I, resolution 1, annex II.
5
Ibid., annex I.
6
General Assembly resolution S-23/2, annex, and Assembly resolution S-23/3, annex.
7
See General Assembly resolution 55/2.
8
See General Assembly resolution 217 A (III).
9
See General Assembly resolution S-26/2, annex.

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 Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

Resolution 2005/1
Population, development and HIV/AIDS, with particular emphasis on poverty

[…]
11. Emphasizes the need to strengthen policy and programme linkages and coordination between
HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health and their inclusion in national development plans, including poverty
reduction strategies and sector-wide approaches where they exist, as a necessary strategy for fighting the HIV/AIDS
pandemic and mitigating its impact on population that could result in more relevant and cost-effective interventions
with greater impact;
12. Urges Governments to implement measures to increase capacities of adults and adolescents to protect
themselves from the risk of HIV infection, principally through the provision of health care and health services,
including for sexual and reproductive health, and through prevention education that promotes gender equality within
a culture- and gender-sensitive framework;
[…]
21. Encourages the design and implementation of programmes to enable men, including young men, to
adopt safe and responsible sexual and reproductive behaviour and to use effective methods to prevent the spread of
HIV/AIDS;
22. Stresses the importance of strengthening programmes and partnerships, including public-private
partnerships, to mobilize the required technical and financial resources as part of a broad-based approach to the
prevention of HIV, including through reproductive and sexual health care, as the mainstay of the national, regional
and international response to the pandemic, and calls for the support of the international community in closing the
funding gaps for sexual and reproductive health programmes;
[…]

Resolution 2005/2
Contribution of the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on
Population and Development, in all its aspects, to the achievement of the internationally agreed development
goals, including those contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration

[…]
3. Emphasizes the importance of integrating the goal of universal access to reproductive health by 2015
set at the International Conference on Population and development into strategies to attain the internationally agreed
development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration, in particular those related to
improving maternal health, reducing infant and child mortality, promoting gender equality, combating HIV/AIDS,
eradicating poverty and achieving universal access to primary education;
4. Also emphasizes the need to strengthen policy and programme linkages and coordination between
HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health and their inclusion in national development plans, including poverty
reduction strategies where they exist and sector-wide approaches where they exist, as a necessary strategy to fight
the HIV/AIDS pandemic and to mitigate its impact on populations, which could result in more relevant and cost-
effective interventions with greater impact;
[…]
7. Stresses that promoting women’s reproductive health, their full enjoyment of all human rights and
fundamental freedoms, their empowerment, their equal access to resources and their freedom from gender-based
violence is essential to achieving gender equality, addressing the feminization of poverty and halving poverty by
2015;
[…]

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Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

Resolution 2007/1
Changing age structures of populations and their implications for development

[…]
19. Urges Governments to promote healthy living at all ages and in all spheres of health, including sexual
and reproductive health, in particular the improvement of maternal, child and adolescent health, and efforts to reduce
maternal and child mortality, and to take steps to prepare health-care systems to meet the challenges posed by
changing age structures;
[…]

Resolution 2008/1
Population distribution, urbanization, internal migration and development

[…]
11. Urges Governments to promote healthy living in both rural and urban areas in all spheres of health,
including sexual and reproductive health, in particular the improvement of maternal, child and adolescent health,
and efforts to reduce maternal and child mortality, in the light of the challenges and opportunities presented by
population distribution, urbanization, internal migration and development;
[…]

Resolution 2009/1
The contribution of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and
Development to the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals

[…]
7. Urges Governments, in order to ensure the contribution of the Programme of Action of the
International Conference on Population and Development to the internationally agreed development goals, including
the Millennium Development Goals, to, inter alia, protect and promote the full respect of human rights and
fundamental freedoms regardless of age and marital status, including by eliminating all forms of discrimination
against girls and women, working more effectively to achieve equality between women and men in all areas of
family responsibility and in sexual and reproductive life, empowering women and girls, promoting and protecting
women’s and girls’ right to education at all levels, providing young people with comprehensive education on human
sexuality, on sexual and reproductive health, on gender equality and on how to deal positively and responsibly with
their sexuality, enacting and enforcing laws to ensure that marriage is entered into only with the free and full consent
of the intending spouses, ensuring the right of women to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on
matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and
violence, combating all forms of violence against women, including harmful traditional and customary practices
such as female genital mutilation, developing strategies to eliminate gender stereotypes in all spheres of life and
achieving gender equality in political life and decision-making, which would contribute to the implementation of the
Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for
Action and the Millennium Development Goals;
8. Also urges States to enact and strictly enforce laws to ensure that marriage is entered into only with the
free and full consent of the intending spouses and, in addition, to enact and strictly enforce laws concerning the
minimum legal age of consent and the minimum age for marriage and to raise the minimum age for marriage where
necessary;
9. Further urges Governments and development partners, including through international cooperation, in
order to improve maternal health, reduce maternal and child morbidity and mortality and prevent and respond to
HIV/AIDS, to strengthen health systems and ensure that they prioritize universal access to sexual and reproductive
information and health-care services, including family planning, prenatal care, safe delivery and post-natal care,
especially breastfeeding and infant and women’s health care, prevention and appropriate treatment of infertility,
quality services for the management of complications arising from abortion, reducing the recourse to abortion

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through expanded and improved family planning services and, in circumstances where abortion is not against the
law, training and equipping health-service providers and other measures to ensure that such abortion is safe and
accessible, recognizing that in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning, treatment of
sexually transmitted infections and other reproductive health conditions and information, education and counselling,
as appropriate, on human sexuality, reproductive health and responsible parenthood, taking into account the
particular needs of those in vulnerable situations, which would contribute to the implementation of the Programme
of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the
Millennium Development Goals;
[…]
13. Reiterates the need for Governments to ensure that all women and men and young people have
information about and access to the widest possible range of safe, effective, affordable, evidence-based and
acceptable methods of family planning, including barrier methods, and to the requisite supplies so that they are able
to exercise free and informed reproductive choices;
[…]
15. Recognizes that the largest generation of adolescents ever in history is now entering sexual and
reproductive life and that their access to sexual and reproductive health information, education and care and family
planning services and commodities, including male and female condoms, as well as voluntary abstinence and
fidelity are essential to achieving the goals set out in Cairo 15 years ago;
16. Calls upon Governments, with the full involvement of young people and with the support of the
international community, to give full attention to meeting the reproductive health-care service, information and
education needs of adolescents to enable them to deal in a positive and responsible way with their sexuality;
[…]
18. Also urges Governments to integrate HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support into primary,
maternal and child health-care programmes and integrate sexual and reproductive health information and services
into HIV/AIDS plans and strategies, so as to increase coverage of antiretroviral treatment and prevent all forms of
transmission of HIV, including mother-to-child transmission, protecting human rights and fighting stigma and
discrimination by empowering women to exercise their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly
on matters related to their sexuality, free of coercion, discrimination and violence;
[…]
27. Recognizes that sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights and women’s rights and
empowerment deserve increased attention in humanitarian assistance and post-crisis recovery, and therefore
emphasizes the need for Governments, United Nations agencies, regional and international organizations and
non-governmental organizations involved with providing support to countries and regions affected by crises to
address the specific needs of those affected in a comprehensive and coherent manner;
[…]

Resolution 2010/1
Health, morbidity, mortality and development

[…]
12. Urges Governments, in order to ensure the contribution of the Programme of Action of the
International Conference on Population and Development to the internationally agreed development goals, including
the Millennium Development Goals, to, inter alia, protect and promote the full respect of human rights and
fundamental freedoms regardless of age and marital status, including by eliminating all forms of discrimination
against girls and women; working more effectively to achieve equality between women and men in all areas of
family responsibility and in sexual and reproductive life; empowering women and girls, promoting and protecting
women’s and girls’ right to education at all levels; providing young people with comprehensive education on human
sexuality, on sexual and reproductive health, on gender equality and on how to deal positively and responsibly with
their sexuality; enacting and enforcing laws to ensure that marriage is entered into only with the free and full consent

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of the intending spouses; ensuring the right of women to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on
matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and
violence; combating all forms of violence against women, including harmful traditional and customary practices
such as female genital mutilation; developing strategies to eliminate gender stereotypes in all spheres of life and
achieving gender equality in political life and decision-making, which would contribute to the implementation of the
Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for
Action and the Millennium Development Goals;
13. Urges Governments to redouble efforts to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality by ensuring that
universal access to reproductive health, including family planning, is achieved by 2015; that health systems provide
a continuum of antenatal and neonatal health care, including delivery assistance by skilled health workers and
emergency obstetric care; that women receive nutritional support; and that sexual and reproductive health
information and services are integrated into HIV/AIDS plans and strategies;
14. Also urges Governments to intensify efforts to provide quality delivery care, including during the often
neglected early post-natal period, as such care improves health outcomes for both women and children;
15. Calls upon Governments to scale up significantly efforts to meet the goal of ensuring universal access
to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, and the goal of halting and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS by
2015, particularly by integrating HIV/AIDS interventions into programmes for primary health care, sexual and
reproductive health, and mother and child health, by strengthening efforts to eliminate the mother-to-child
transmission of HIV, and by preventing and treating other sexually transmitted diseases;
[…]

Resolution 2011/1
Fertility, reproductive health and development

 The Commission on Population and Development,

Recalling the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development1 and the
key actions for its further implementation,2
Recalling also the United Nations Millennium Declaration3 and the 2005 World Summit Outcome,4 including
the Millennium Development Goals and other internationally agreed development goals, and the Beijing Platform
for Action,5
Recalling further the outcome document of the High-level Plenary Meeting of the sixty-fifth session of the
General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals, “Keeping the promise: united to achieve the Millennium
Development Goals”,6
 Recalling the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits in the economic, social and
related fields, especially those related to global health, 
Recalling also all General Assembly resolutions related to global public health, including those related to
global health and foreign policy, 
Recognizing that the full implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on
Population and Development and the key actions for its further implementation, including those related to sexual
and reproductive health and reproductive rights, which would also contribute to the implementation of the Beijing
Platform for Action, as well as those on population and development, education and gender equality, is integrally
linked to global efforts to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development and that population dynamics are
all-important for development, 
Reaffirming that development is a central goal in itself and that sustainable development in its economic,
social and environmental aspects constitutes a key element of the overarching framework of United Nations
activities, 
Recognizing the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number,
spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, their right to attain the highest

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 Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

standard of sexual and reproductive health, and their right to make decisions concerning reproduction free of
discrimination, coercion and violence, as expressed in human rights documents, 
Recognizing also that all populations of the world are undergoing a historically unique transition from high
levels of fertility and mortality to low levels of fertility and mortality, known as the demographic transition, which
has strong effects on the age structure of populations, and cognizant of the fact that countries are at different stages
of this transition, with some countries still experiencing high levels of fertility and some countries experiencing
fertility that is below replacement level,
Recognizing further that in the first stage of the demographic transition, when mortality is falling, the
proportion of children increases, that in the second stage, when both fertility and mortality are falling, the proportion
of adults of working age increases, and that in the third stage, when fertility and mortality reach low levels, only the
proportion of older persons increases, 
Recognizing that the second stage of the demographic transition presents a window of opportunity for
development and that the translation of this window of opportunity into benefits for development requires national
policies and an international economic environment conducive to investment, employment, sustained economic
development and further integration and full participation of developing countries in the global economy,
Recognizing also the close relation between fertility and poverty eradication and the negative correlation
between very high fertility levels and development indicators, and stressing that, since countries are at different
stages of the demographic transition and experience different social and economic conditions, development and
policy implications vary from country to country depending on their level of social and economic development,
Noting that the decline in fertility levels, reinforced by continued declines in mortality levels, is producing
fundamental changes in the age structure of the population of most societies, most notably record increases in the
proportion and number of elderly persons, including a growing number of very elderly persons, 
Recognizing that the ultimate goal is the improvement of the quality of life of present and future generations,
that the objective is to facilitate the demographic transition, as soon as possible, in countries where there is an
imbalance between demographic rates and social, economic and environmental goals, while fully respecting human
rights, and that this process will contribute to the stabilization of the world population and, together with changes in
unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, to sustainable development and economic growth, 
Noting that, owing to declining mortality levels and the persistence of high fertility levels, a large number of
developing countries continue to have very large proportions of children and young people in their populations and
that these young populations have health, education and employment needs to be met by families, local
communities, countries and the international community, 
Recognizing that the world community has a special responsibility to ensure that all children receive an
education of improved quality and that they complete primary school even if it is more difficult to meet educational
needs when there is rapid population growth, 
Recognizing also the right of women and girls to education at all levels as well as access to life skills and sex
education based on full and accurate information and, with respect to girls and boys, in a manner consistent with
their evolving capacities, and with appropriate direction and guidance from parents and legal guardians, in order to
help women and girls, men and boys, to develop knowledge to enable them to make informed and responsible
decisions to reduce early childbearing and maternal mortality, to promote access to prenatal and post-natal care and
to combat sexual harassment and gender-based violence,
Recognizing further that the availability of safer, more effective, affordable and acceptable methods of
modern contraception, although still inadequate in some respects, has permitted greater opportunities for individual
choice and responsible decision-making in matters of reproduction and that this ability to decide both the number
and spacing of children has directly improved the immediate and long-term health of women, children and families, 
Acknowledging that hundreds of millions of women and men lack access to safe, affordable, effective and
acceptable forms of modern contraception and that, based on the current large unmet demand for reproductive health
services, including family planning, and the expected growth in numbers of women and men of reproductive age,
demand for these services will continue to grow over the next several decades, especially for the younger, poorer,
less educated and rural segments of the population, who face greater barriers to access these services,

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Recognizing that under-age and forced marriage and early sexual relationships have adverse psychological
effects on girls and that early pregnancy and early motherhood entail complications during pregnancy and delivery
and a risk of maternal mortality and morbidity that is much greater than average, and deeply concerned that early
childbearing and limited access to the highest attainable standard of health, including sexual and reproductive health,
including in the area of emergency obstetric care, cause high levels of obstetric fistula and maternal mortality and
morbidity, 
Encouraging States to create a socio-economic environment conducive to the elimination of all child
marriages and other unions as a matter of urgency, to discourage early marriage and to reinforce the social
responsibilities that marriage entails in their educational programmes, 
Recognizing that pregnancy that occurs late in reproductive life also presents a higher risk of complications
during pregnancy and delivery, 
Expressing deep concern that an estimated 358,000 women died in 2008 from largely preventable
complications related to pregnancy and childbirth and that maternal health remains one area constrained by some of
the largest health inequities in the world,
Welcoming the Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health, undertaken by a
broad coalition of partners, in support of national plans and strategies, in order to significantly reduce the number of
maternal, newborn and under-five child deaths as a matter of immediate concern by scaling up a priority package of
high-impact interventions and integrating efforts in sectors such as health, education, gender equality, water and
sanitation, poverty reduction and nutrition, and welcoming also the various national, regional and international
initiatives on all the Millennium Development Goals, including those undertaken bilaterally and through South-
South cooperation, in support of national plans and strategies in sectors such as health, education, gender equality,
energy, water and sanitation, poverty reduction and nutrition as a way to reduce the number of maternal, newborn
and under-five child deaths,
Recalling that the Programme of Action requires for its full implementation adequate and sustained
mobilization and availability of resources at the national and international levels, as well as new and additional
resources for developing countries from all available funding mechanisms, including multilateral, bilateral and
private sources, and that Governments are not expected to meet the goals and objectives of the Programme of Action
single-handedly, and expressing concern that funding levels do not meet current needs,
Recognizing that one of the serious global challenges that has a negative impact on reproductive health and
development is trafficking in persons, which requires a concerted international response through full and effective
implementation of such international mechanisms as the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and
Children, supplementing that Convention, as well as the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat
Trafficking in Persons, 
Taking note of the reports of the Secretary-General on fertility, reproductive health and development7 and on
the monitoring of population programmes, focusing on fertility, reproductive health and development,8 and taking
note also of the reports of the Secretary-General on the flow of financial resources for assisting in the
implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development9 and
on world demographic trends,10
1. Reaffirms the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development1
and the key actions for its further implementation;2
2. Also reaffirms its strong commitment to the full implementation of the Programme of Action adopted
at the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, as well as the key actions for the further
implementation of the Programme of Action agreed at the five-year review of the Programme of Action, and the
Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development and the Programme of Action;11
3. Welcomes the decision of the General Assembly in its resolution 65/234 of 22 December 2010 to
extend the Programme of Action and the key actions for its further implementation2 beyond 2014 and ensure its
follow-up in order to fully meet its goals and objectives;
4. Reaffirms the sovereign right of each country to implement recommendations of the Programme of
Action or other proposals in the present resolution, consistent with national laws and development priorities, with

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 Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

full respect for the various religious and ethical values and cultural backgrounds of its people, and in conformity
with universally recognized international human rights;
5. Also reaffirms that gender equality cannot be achieved without promoting and protecting the right of
women to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including sexual and reproductive
health, and reaffirms further that expanding access to sexual and reproductive health information and health services
is essential for achieving the Beijing Platform for Action,5 the Cairo Programme of Action and the Millennium
Development Goals;
6. Urges Governments, in order to ensure the contribution of the Programme of Action of the
International Conference on Population and Development to the internationally agreed development goals, including
the Millennium Development Goals, to, inter alia, protect and promote full respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms regardless of age and marital status, including by eliminating all forms of discrimination
against girls and women, working more effectively to achieve equality between women and men in all areas of
family responsibility and in sexual and reproductive life, empowering women and girls, promoting and protecting
the right of women and girls to education at all levels, providing young people with comprehensive education on
human sexuality, on sexual and reproductive health, on gender equality and on how to deal positively and
responsibly with their sexuality, enacting and enforcing laws to ensure that marriage is entered into only with the
free and full consent of the intending spouses, ensuring the right of women to have control over and decide freely
and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion,
discrimination and violence, combating all forms of violence against women, including harmful traditional and
customary practices such as female genital mutilation, developing strategies to eliminate gender stereotypes in all
spheres of life and achieving gender equality in political life and decision-making, which would contribute to the
implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the
Beijing Platform for Action and the Millennium Development Goals;
7. Stresses that States should eliminate all forms of discrimination against the girl child and the root
causes of son preference, which results in harmful and unethical practices regarding female infanticide and prenatal
sex selection, increase public awareness of the value of the girl child, and concurrently, strengthen the girl child’s
self-image, self-esteem and status, and improve the welfare of the girl child, especially in regard to health, nutrition
and education, and urges Governments to take the necessary measures to prevent infanticide, prenatal sex selection,
trafficking in girl children and the use of girls in prostitution and pornography;
8. Underlines the central role of the global partnership for development and the importance of Goal 8 in
achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and recognizes that, without substantial international support, several
of the goals are likely to be missed in many developing countries by 2015; 
9. Stresses the need to strengthen health systems so that they deliver equitable health outcomes as a basis
for a comprehensive approach to achieving Millennium Development Goals 4, 5 and 6, underlining the need to build
sustainable national health systems and strengthen national capacities through attention to, inter alia, service
delivery, health systems financing, including appropriate budgetary allocations, the health workforce, health
information systems, the procurement and distribution of medicines, vaccines and technologies, sexual and
reproductive health care and political will in leadership and governance, and further stresses the need to promote the
widest possible access to health-care services at the point of use, especially to those in vulnerable situations, through
public policies that remove barriers to access to and use of health-care services;
10. Encourages Governments to prioritize universal access to sexual and reproductive health as part of
health systems strengthening to eliminate preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and to take action at all
levels to address the interlinked root causes of sexual and reproductive ill health, unintended pregnancy,
complications arising from unsafe abortion, and maternal mortality and morbidity, including poverty, malnutrition,
harmful practices, lack of accessible and appropriate health-care services, information and education, and gender
inequality, taking into account people living in the most vulnerable situations, including persons with disabilities,
displaced and refugee populations and irregular migrants, and paying particular attention to achieving gender
equality and eliminating all forms of violence and discrimination against women and girls, with the full involvement
of men;
11. Urges Governments to redouble efforts to eliminate preventable maternal morbidity and mortality by
ensuring that universal access to reproductive health, including family planning, is achieved by 2015; that health
systems provide a continuum of antenatal and neonatal health care, including delivery assistance by skilled health

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workers and emergency obstetric care; that nutritional support is always available for women, and in particular
during pregnancy and the breastfeeding period; and that sexual and reproductive health information and services are
integrated into HIV and AIDS plans and strategies;
12. Also urges Governments and development partners, including through international cooperation, in
order to improve maternal health, reduce maternal and child morbidity and mortality and prevent and respond to
HIV and AIDS, to strengthen health systems and ensure that they prioritize universal access to sexual and
reproductive information and health-care services, including family planning, prenatal care, safe delivery and post-
natal care, especially breastfeeding and infant and women’s health care, emergency obstetric care, prevention and
appropriate treatment of infertility, quality services for the management of complications arising from abortion,
reducing the recourse to abortion through expanded and improved family planning services and, in circumstances
where abortion is not against the law, training and equipping health-service providers and other measures to ensure
that such abortion is safe and accessible, recognizing that in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of
family planning, prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and other reproductive
health conditions and information, education and counselling, as appropriate, on human sexuality, reproductive
health and responsible parenthood, taking into account the particular needs of those in vulnerable situations, which
would contribute to the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population
and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the Millennium Development Goals; 
13. Emphasizes the need to strengthen policy and programme linkages and coordination between HIV and
AIDS and sexual and reproductive health and their inclusion in national development plans, including poverty
reduction strategies and sector-wide approaches where they exist, as a necessary strategy for fighting the HIV and
AIDS pandemic and mitigating its impact on population, which could result in more relevant and cost-effective
interventions with greater impact; 
14. Calls upon Governments to significantly scale up efforts to meet the goal of ensuring universal access
to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, free of discrimination and with a gender perspective, and the goal of
halting and reversing the spread of HIV and AIDS by 2015, in particular by integrating HIV and AIDS interventions
into programmes for primary health care, sexual and reproductive health, and maternal, neonatal and child health,
including by strengthening efforts to eliminate the vertical transmission of HIV from mother to child, and by
preventing and treating other sexually transmitted infections, and encouraging responsible sexual behaviour,
including abstinence and fidelity, and expanded access to essential commodities, including male and female
condoms and microbicides, through the adoption of measures to reduce costs and improve availability;
15. Urges Member States, with the appropriate technical and financial support from development partners
when needed, to design and implement national cancer control plans and strategies that encompass prevention, early
detection, treatment and palliation of cancers of the male and female reproductive systems, especially prostate,
breast and cervical cancers, and to strengthen existing health services and health systems to increase the capacity to
detect these cancers at earlier stages and allow prompt access to quality treatment;
16. Reiterates the need for Governments to ensure that all women and men have comprehensive
information about, and access to and choice of the widest possible range of safe, effective, affordable and acceptable
modern methods of family planning, including long-acting methods and male and female condoms, so that they are
able to exercise free and informed reproductive choices, and stresses that Governments and development partners,
through international cooperation, should ensure that family planning programmes have a sufficient and continuous
supply of safe, effective, affordable and acceptable modern contraceptives; 
17. Calls upon Governments to further strive to ensure the complete access to primary school or an
equivalent level of education by both girls and boys as quickly as possible, and urges countries to extend education
and training to secondary and higher school levels, and to facilitate access to and completion of education at those
levels; 
18. Recognizes the rights, duties and responsibilities of parents and other persons legally responsible for
adolescents to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the adolescent, appropriate direction
and guidance on sexual and reproductive matters, and that countries must ensure that the programmes and attitudes
of health-care providers do not restrict the access of adolescents to appropriate services and the information they
need, including on sexually transmitted infections and sexual abuse, and recognizes that in doing so, and in order to,
inter alia, address sexual abuse, these services must safeguard the right of adolescents to privacy, confidentiality,
respect and informed consent, respecting cultural values and religious beliefs, and that in this context, countries

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should, where appropriate, remove legal, regulatory and social barriers to reproductive health information and care
for adolescents;
19. Reiterates the need for Governments to ensure that all women and men and young people have
information about and access to the widest possible range of safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of
family planning, including male and female condoms, and to the requisite supplies, so that they are able to exercise
free and informed reproductive choices;
20. Recognizes that the largest generation of adolescents in history is now entering sexual and reproductive
life and that their access to sexual and reproductive health information, education and care and family planning
services and commodities, including male and female condoms, as well as voluntary abstinence and fidelity are
essential to achieving the goals set out in Cairo 17 years ago;
21. Calls upon Governments, with the full involvement of young people and with the support of the
international community, to give full attention to meeting the reproductive health-care service, information and
education needs of adolescents, to enable them to deal in a positive and responsible way with their sexuality;
22. Urges Member States to enact and strictly enforce laws to ensure that marriage is entered into only
with the free and full consent of the intending spouses and, in addition, to enact and strictly enforce laws concerning
the minimum legal age of consent and the minimum age for marriage, and to raise the minimum age for marriage
where necessary;
23. Calls upon Governments to incorporate gender perspectives and human rights into health-sector
policies, programmes and research activities, paying attention to the specific needs and priorities of women and
girls, ensuring women’s right to the highest attainable standards of health and their access to affordable and
adequate health-care services, including sexual, reproductive and maternal health care and lifesaving obstetric care,
in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, and
recognizes that lack of economic empowerment and independence has increased women’s vulnerability to a range of
negative consequences, involving the risk of contracting HIV and AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other poverty-
related diseases;
24. Urges Member States, the United Nations and civil society to include in their development priorities
programmes that enable men to support women’s access to safe conditions for pregnancy and childbirth, contribute
to family planning, prevent sexually transmitted infections and HIV and end violence against women and girls;
25. Urges Governments to strengthen basic infrastructure, human and technical resources and the
provision of health facilities in order to improve health systems and ensure the accessibility, affordability and
quality, especially in rural and remote areas, of health-care services, as well as sustainable access to safe drinking
water and basic sanitation, bearing in mind the commitment to halving, by 2015, the proportion of the population
without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation as a means of fighting waterborne diseases; 
26. Encourages Member States to adopt and implement legislation and policies to promote the
reconciliation of paid work and family responsibilities through, inter alia, family-friendly and gender-sensitive work
environments, the facilitation of breastfeeding for working mothers and the provision of the necessary care for
working women’s children and other dependants and increased flexibility in working arrangements, and to ensure
that both women and men have access to maternity, paternity, parental and other forms of leave and are not
discriminated against when availing themselves of such benefits; 
27. Recognizes the need to address the economic, social and psychological implications of infertility for
individuals, couples and societies as a whole, and encourages Member States and development partners, including
through international cooperation and resources, to facilitate access to prevention, required know-how and
technologies for more effective and affordable treatment of infertility; 
28. Also recognizes that children often form the majority within poor households, and therefore calls upon
Governments to develop and implement appropriate social protection measures to provide for the basic needs of
children in poor households, especially orphans and vulnerable children; 
29. Encourages Governments, including through technical and financial support and cooperation, to
prevent and address, as a matter of priority, deaths and complications related to pregnancy and childbirth, which are
still the leading cause of death of women of reproductive age in many developing countries, recognizing that
maternal mortality and morbidity have shown very little decline in the least developed countries, that the lack of safe

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motherhood services is still one of the world’s urgent concerns and that reducing maternal mortality and morbidity
saves women’s lives, protects family health, alleviates poverty and improves opportunities for future generations; 
30. Recognizes that sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights and women’s rights and
empowerment deserve increased attention in humanitarian assistance and post-crisis recovery, and therefore
emphasizes the need for Governments, United Nations agencies, regional and international organizations and non-
governmental organizations involved in providing support to countries and regions affected by crises to address the
specific needs of those affected in a comprehensive and coherent manner, in accordance with the Programme of
Action of the International Conference on Population and Development;
31. Underlines the health and rehabilitation needs of victims of terrorism, encompassing both physical and
mental health;
32. Also underlines its commitment to developing and implementing national strategies that promote
public health in programmes or actions that respond to challenges faced by all populations affected by conflict,
natural disasters and other humanitarian emergencies, and acknowledges that inequities in access to health care can
increase during times of crisis and that special efforts should be made to maintain primary health-care functions
during these periods, as well as to ensure that the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable are met during the post-
crisis, peacebuilding and early recovery stages;
33. Further underlines the need of people living in situations of armed conflict and foreign occupation for
a functioning public-health system, including access to health care and services;
34. Welcomes the adoption by the sixty-third World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization
Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel12 as a guide to respond to the concerns
over the lack of and imbalanced distribution of health workers within countries and throughout the world, in
particular the shortage in Africa, and the retention of health personnel, in a manner that strengthens the health
systems of developing countries, countries with economies in transition and small island developing States;
35. Calls upon Governments, in formulating and implementing national development plans, budgets and
poverty eradication strategies, to prioritize actions to address challenges relating to the impact of population
dynamics on poverty and sustainable development, taking into account a differential approach to people living in the
most vulnerable situations, keeping in mind that universal reproductive health-care services, commodities and
supplies, as well as information, education, skill development, national capacity-building for population and
development and transfer of appropriate technology and know-how to developing countries are essential for
achieving the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing
Platform for Action and the Millennium Development Goals and can contribute to economic and social development
and to poverty eradication;
36. Encourages Governments to ensure that adequate financial and technical resources and information
necessary for the effective participation of non-governmental organizations in the research, design, implementation,
monitoring and evaluation of population and development activities should, if feasible and if requested, be made
available to the non-governmental sector by Governments, intergovernmental organizations and international
financial institutions in a manner that will not compromise their full autonomy; 
37. Also encourages Governments and development partners to bring their investments in reproductive
health in line with the revised cost estimates presented by the Secretary-General for each of the four programme
components identified in chapter XIII of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population
and Development,13 and calls upon Governments of both developed and developing countries to make every effort
to mobilize the required resources to ensure that the health, development and human rights-related objectives of the
Programme of Action are met, and urges Governments and development partners to cooperate closely to ensure that
resources are used in a manner that ensures maximum effectiveness and is in full alignment with the needs and
priorities of developing countries; 
38. Calls upon the international community to assist Governments in reducing unmet needs for family
planning by increasing financial resources for the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International
Conference on Population and Development, especially in the area of family planning and commodities within
primary health-care systems, ensuring that funding lines for family planning programmes and commodities are
included in national budget formulations and that funding enables the development of quality, comprehensive and
integrated reproductive health programmes; 

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39. Urges Governments to monitor their progress towards the implementation of the Programme of
Action, the key actions for its further implementation and the Millennium Development Goals at the local and
national levels and, in this regard, to make special efforts to strengthen their vital registration and health information
systems and to develop the capacity of relevant national institutions and mechanisms to generate population data,
disaggregated by sex, age and other categories, as needed to monitor the improvement of maternal health, the
achievement of the target of universal access to reproductive health and progress in empowering women and
achieving gender equality, and to use these data for the formulation and implementation of population and
development policies; 
40. Requests the Secretary-General to continue, within the framework of the implementation of the
Programme of Action, his substantive work on fertility, reproductive health and development, including integrating
a gender and age perspective and other relevant perspectives into analyses and recommendations, in collaboration
and coordination with relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes and other relevant international
organizations, and to continue assessing the progress made in achieving the goals and objectives on fertility,
reproductive health and development set out in the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits,
giving due consideration to their implications for development and poverty eradication and sustained, equitable and
inclusive economic growth.

__________
1
Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5-13 September 1994 (United Nations publication,
Sales No. E.95.XIII.18), chap. I, resolution 1, annex.
2
See resolution S-21/2, annex; Official Records of the General Assembly, Twenty-first Special Session, Supplement No. 3
(A/S-21/5/Rev.1); and A/S-21/PV.9.
3
See resolution 55/2.
4
See resolution 60/1.
5
Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4-15 September 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No.
E.96.IV.13),chap. I, resolution 1, annex II.
6
See resolution 65/1.
7
E/CN.9/2011/3.
8
E/CN.9/2011/4.
9
E/CN.9/2011/5.
10
E/CN.9/2011/6.
11
Report of the World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, 6-12 March 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No.
E.96.IV.8), chap. I, resolution 1, annexes I and II.
12
See World Health Organization, Sixty-third World Health Assembly, Geneva, 17-21 May 2010, Resolutions and Decisions, Annexes
(WHA63/2010/REC/1).
13
See E/CN.9/2011/5, chap. V.

Resolution 2012/1
Adolescents and youth

[…]
7. Urges Governments to protect and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms regardless of age
and marital status, including, inter alia, by eliminating all forms of discrimination against girls and women, by
working more effectively to achieve equality between women and men in all areas of family responsibility, in sexual
and reproductive life, and in education at all levels, and by protecting the human rights of adolescents and youth to
have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and
reproductive health;
[…]
12. Urges all States to enact and enforce legislation to protect all adolescents and youth, including those in
situations of armed conflict, natural disasters or humanitarian emergencies, from all forms of violence, including
gender-based violence and sexual violence, trafficking in persons and involvement in criminal activities, and to
provide social and health services, including sexual and reproductive health services, and complaint and reporting
mechanisms for the redress of violations of their human rights;
[…]

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Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

17. Also calls upon Governments to support and encourage men in their important role as fathers and in
helping their children transition successfully to adulthood, including by providing adequate financial support for
their children and families, to promote positive male role models and programmes for boys to become gender-
sensitive adults and to enable men to support, promote and respect women’s sexual and reproductive health and
reproductive rights, recognizing the inherent dignity of all human beings;
[…]
23. Urges Governments and the international community to ensure that young people, on an equitable and
universal basis, enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health by providing them with access to
sustainable health and social services without discrimination, by paying special attention to nutrition, including
eating disorders and obesity, prevention of non-communicable and communicable diseases, promotion of sexual and
reproductive health, and mental health, and by supporting measures to prevent sexually transmitted diseases,
including HIV and AIDS, to reduce road traffic fatalities and injuries, to prevent tobacco and illicit drug use and the
harmful use of alcohol, and to encourage sports and recreation as well as the removal of all types of barriers to the
ability of adolescents and youth to protect their health;
[…]
25. Recognizes the rights, duties and responsibilities of parents and other persons legally responsible for
adolescents to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the adolescent, appropriate direction
and guidance on sexual and reproductive matters, and that countries must ensure that the programmes and attitudes
of health-care providers do not restrict the access by adolescents to appropriate services and the information they
need, including on sexually transmitted infections and sexual abuse, and recognizes that in doing so, and in order to,
inter alia, address sexual abuse, these services must safeguard the right of adolescents to privacy, confidentiality,
respect and informed consent, respecting cultural values and religious beliefs, and that in this context, countries
should, where appropriate, remove legal, regulatory and social barriers to reproductive health information and care
for adolescents;
26. Calls upon Governments, with the full involvement of young people and with the support of the
international community, to give full attention to meeting the reproductive health-service, information and education
needs of young people, with full respect for their privacy and confidentiality, free of discrimination, and to provide
them with evidence-based comprehensive education on human sexuality, sexual and reproductive health, human
rights and gender equality to enable them to deal in a positive and responsible way with their sexuality;
27. Urges Governments and development partners, including through international cooperation, in order to
improve maternal health, reduce maternal and child morbidity and mortality, and prevent and respond to HIV and
AIDS, to strengthen health systems and ensure that they prioritize universal access to sexual and reproductive
information and health-care services, including family planning, prenatal care, safe delivery and postnatal care,
especially breastfeeding and infant and women’s health care, emergency obstetric care, prevention and appropriate
treatment of infertility, quality services for the management of complications arising from abortion, reducing the
recourse to abortion through expanded and improved family planning services and, in circumstances where abortion
is not against the law, training and equipping health-service providers and other measures to ensure that such
abortion is safe and accessible, recognizing that in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family
planning, prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and other reproductive health
conditions and information, education and counselling, as appropriate, on human sexuality, reproductive health and
responsible parenthood, taking into account the particular needs of those in vulnerable situations, which would
contribute to the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and
Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the Millennium Development Goals;
28. Reiterates the need for Governments to ensure that all women and men have comprehensive
information about, and access to, a choice of the widest possible range of safe, effective, affordable and acceptable
modern methods of family planning, including long-acting methods and male and female condoms, so that they are
able to exercise free and informed reproductive choices, and stresses that Governments and development partners,
through international cooperation, should ensure that family planning programmes have a sufficient and continuous
supply of safe, effective, affordable and acceptable modern contraceptives;
[…]

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 Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

Resolution 2013/1
New trends in migration: demographic aspects

[…]
30. Recognizes that migrants and displaced persons in many parts of the world have limited access to
health care, including for sexual and reproductive health, and face specific threats to their reproductive health and
rights, and calls upon Governments to provide services that are particularly sensitive to the needs of individual
women and adolescents and responsive to their often powerless situation, with particular attention to those who are
victims of sexual violence;
31. Calls upon Member States to intensify efforts to provide migrants with access to health and social
services, including sexual and reproductive health services, information and education, and access to services for the
prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS and other communicable or non-communicable diseases, and for the
care and support of persons living with these conditions; as well as to implement measures to prevent violence,
including sexual violence, and to address the consequences by providing, inter alia, emergency contraception and
safe abortion in circumstances where such services are permitted by national law;
[…]

Resolution 2014/1
Assessment of the status of implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on
Population and Development

[…]
9. Urges Governments to address existing gaps in the implementation of the Programme of Action,
including in such areas as respect for, and protection, promotion and fulfilment of, human rights, and gender
equality and the empowerment of women and girls, as well as unequal progress in achieving universal and equitable
access to health services, including for sexual and reproductive health, and newborn and child health, uneven
progress in health conditions and life expectancy, and the elimination of violence and discrimination without
distinction of any kind;
10. Recognizes the rights, duties and responsibilities of parents and other persons legally responsible for
adolescents to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the adolescent, appropriate direction
and guidance on sexual and reproductive matters, and that countries must ensure that the programmes and attitudes
of health-care providers do not restrict the access by adolescents to appropriate services and the information they
need, including on sexually transmitted infections and sexual abuse, and also recognizes that in doing so, and in
order to address, inter alia, sexual abuse, these services must safeguard the right of adolescents to privacy,
confidentiality, respect and informed consent, respecting cultural values and religious beliefs, and that in this context
countries should, where appropriate, remove legal, regulatory and social barriers to reproductive health information
and care for adolescents;
11. Urges Governments, the international community and all other relevant stakeholders to give particular
attention to the areas of shortfall in the implementation of the Programme of Action, including, the elimination of
preventable maternal morbidity and mortality through strengthening health systems, equitable and universal access
to quality, integrated and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services, and by ensuring the access of
adolescents and youth to full and accurate information and education on sexual and reproductive health, including
evidence-based comprehensive education on human sexuality, and promotion, respect, protection and fulfilment of
all human rights, especially the human rights of women and girls, including sexual and reproductive health and
reproductive rights, and by addressing the persistence of discriminatory laws and the unfair and discriminatory
application of laws;
12. Also urges Governments and development partners, including through international cooperation, to
improve maternal health, reduce maternal and child morbidity and mortality and prevent and respond to HIV and
AIDS, to strengthen health systems and ensure that they prioritize universal access to sexual and reproductive
information and health-care services, including family planning, prenatal care, safe delivery and postnatal care,
especially breastfeeding and infant and women’s health care, emergency obstetric care, prevention and appropriate

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs | Population Division ϵϱ

Chapter 5: Reproductive rights and reproductive health

treatment of infertility, quality services for the management of complications arising from abortion, access to
reliable information and compassionate counselling for women who have unwanted pregnancies, reducing the
recourse to abortion through expanded and improved family planning services and, in circumstances where abortion
is not against the law, training and equipping health-service providers and other measures to ensure that such
abortion is safe and accessible, recognizing that in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family
planning, prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and other reproductive health
conditions and information, education and counselling, as appropriate, on human sexuality, reproductive health and
responsible parenthood, taking into account the particular needs of those in vulnerable situations, which would
contribute to the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and
Development, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Millennium Development Goals;
[…]

ϵϲ Compendium of Recommendations on Population and Development | Volume I