{"id":6518,"date":"2019-11-13T08:00:50","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T05:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6518"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:40","slug":"fresh-drive-to-close-gaps-on-health-issues-facing-women-and-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/11\/13\/fresh-drive-to-close-gaps-on-health-issues-facing-women-and-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresh Drive To Close Gaps On Health Issues Facing Women And Girls"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By Alex Ezeh<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Africa today women\nstill die needlessly during childbirth. They also fall pregnant when they\naren\u2019t ready, and don\u2019t want to get pregnant. And there are still many\nobstacles on their path to living full and fulfilled lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sexual and\nreproductive health and rights are fundamental to people\u2019s health and survival,\nto economic development, and to the well-being of humanity. Several decades of\nresearch have shown that investment in sexual and reproductive health produces\nmeasurable benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Governments have\nmade major commitments to getting this right. But progress has been stymied\nbecause of weak political commitment, inadequate resources, persistent\ndiscrimination against women and girls, and an unwillingness to address issues\nrelated to sexuality openly and comprehensively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was the\nconclusion of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/pdfs\/journals\/lancet\/PIIS0140-6736(18)30293-9.pdf\">a\nreport<\/a>&nbsp;on sexual and reproductive health produced last year by the\nglobal health research and policy organisation, Guttmacher Institute, and the\nacademic journal, The Lancet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A fresh effort is\nunder way to close these persistent gaps. These are centre stage at a\nspecial&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nairobisummiticpd.org\/content\/about-nairobi-summit\">summit<\/a>&nbsp;in\nNairobi being convened by the United Nations Population Fund along with the\ngovernments of Kenya and Denmark. Among those attending will be heads of state,\nministers, parliamentarians, thought-leaders, technical experts, civil society\norganisations, grassroots organisations, and business and community leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Nairobi Summit\ncomes a quarter of a century after pledges were made at the International\nConference on Population and Development in Cairo in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.unfpa.org\/events\/international-conference-population-and-development-icpd\">1994<\/a>.\nThese included reducing maternal deaths, making sure women had access to family\nplanning and protecting them from gender-based violence, including female\ngenital mutilation and child marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/fresh-drive-to-close-gaps-on-health-issues-facing-women-and-girls-126442\">Read\nmore\u2026<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Alex Ezeh In Africa today women still die needlessly during childbirth. They also fall pregnant when they aren\u2019t ready, and don\u2019t want to get pregnant. And there are still&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}