Thirty years back, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo, Egypt, highlighted the right of all individuals to attain the greatest requirement of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). In 2004, WHO published a reproductive health strategy - validated by 191 Member States at the Fifty-seventh World Health Assembly - that enhanced the midpoint of SRHR to societies and economies (Resolution WHA57.12). These frameworks are grounded in gender equality and acknowledge the changeless value of sexual health in attaining health for all.

WHO scientists worked with Member States, civil society and neighborhoods across all areas to operationalize an International Strategy to cover the five crucial pillars for enhancing SRHR:

- improving antenatal, perinatal, postpartum and newborn care

- offering family preparation services

- eliminating unsafe abortion

- combatting sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

- promoting sexual health.

Resolution WHA57.12 additional notified SRHR policies and assisting files in several areas and Member States. For example, Latin America's 2013 Montevideo Consensus and Africa's Maputo Strategy from 2016 (building upon the original 2006 plan) both consist of language and concepts reinforcing and maintaining SRHR.

" The worldwide method is the foundational policy document that centres WHO's required for sexual and reproductive health to date," stated Dr Pascale Allotey, Director of the UN Special Programme on Human Reproduction (HRP) and WHO's Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health. "The text remains essential in adding to directing research study top priorities and dealing with countries to develop beneficial resources to ensure extensive SRHR across the life course."

Significant progress has been made over the last twenty years within each of the five pillars, including these examples.

- The Global strategy came about as the world was reeling from the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Today, the variety of people acquiring HIV has fallen by 38% considering that 2010 alone, due in part to the Strategy's focus on eliminating STIs consisting of HIV.

- As of March 2022, 60% of WHO Member States have included the human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV) in their regular immunization schedules, greatly advancing efforts to get rid of cervical cancer as a public health threat.

- Prioritizing family planning services and birth control gain access to resulted in WHO's Family planning: a worldwide handbook for companies referral guide, which has been shared over a million times. Accordingly, the percentage of women using modern-day contraceptive methods increased from 467 million in 1990 to 874 million in 2022, while a wider series of contraceptive choices is now offered.


A 2020 study discovered that there has been a worldwide reduction in unintentional pregnancy. Furthermore, evidence-based medical abortion programs have actually enhanced worldwide access to abortion, and over 60 nations have liberalized abortion laws in the past thirty years in line with evidence on the value of such efforts to ensure the health of women and adolescent girls.

Professor Kate Gilmore, co-chair of the Gender and Human Rights Advisory Panel of HRP, credited the Strategy and WHO for helping produce crucial scientific evidence on SRHR that has actually added to a few of these shifts. "A few of the excellent advances that we've seen - including the method civil society has actually used up the cause to argue for access to safe and legal abortion - are because of the Strategy and the methodical generation of proof over these previous 20 years," she stated.

Despite early gains, however, current years have seen indications of stagnation. From 2000 to 2020, the maternal death rate come by 34% worldwide - however a 2023 report discovered that progress has mainly stalled because. The uneasy pattern was highlighted during a current occasion showcasing global datasets on the development of SRHR since ICPD. High maternal death rates continue in a few nations and sexual health issues, such as endometriosis, infertility and sexual erectile dysfunction, are typically neglected or normalized.

Dr Allotey and Dr Manjulaa Narasimhan, scientist at WHO and HRP, kept in mind in a current commentary in the WHO Bulletin that the SRHR agenda remains unfinished and in some circumstances has fallen back due to geopolitical stress, financial slumps, the international food crisis, climate modification, humanitarian crises and COVID-19.

There are emerging chances to catalyse development - for instance, by boosting human rights-based approaches in SRHR and embedding concepts like non-discrimination, consisting of in crisis situations. Improving health systems with a main health-care approach can boost equity and expand access to extensive SRHR services. New innovations and alternative service shipment methods can improve SRHR by broadening gain access to, option and autonomy.

Other future-looking focus locations within SRHR consist of research study on the transformative function of expert system and ingenious contraception approaches, additional work on strengthening health systems, and the withstanding prioritization of favorable pregnancy and childbirth experiences.

At a more comprehensive level, Dr Allotey called for an ongoing emphasis on the foundational significance of SRHR. "Sexual and reproductive health must never be relegated to the margins of health care, but acknowledged as vital for the total wellness of people and the neighborhoods in which they live," she stated.