IPPF: Universal health coverage and sexual and reproductive health and rights

25 December, 2021

Below are extracts from the International Planneded Parenthood Federation's latest Position Paper, and a comment from me:

Universal health coverage and sexual and reproductive health and rights

https://www.ippf.org/sites/default/files/2021-12/IPPF-PositionPaper-UHC-...

'Quality SRH care and services, education, and information should be available, accessible and affordable to all people...'

'The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the delivery of essential SRHR information, care and services and, as the pandemic continues, threatens to limit access to these services even further.

'A growing body of research describes how poor health outcomes are strongly related to gender inequalities, discrimination, violence, and lack of SRHR information and services.

'Accurate information and counselling on SRH and evidence-based, comprehensive sexuality education' is identified as the first 'essential intervention'.

'A well-trained and equitably distributed health workforce, including medical professionals, peer educators, community health workers and volunteers, is critical to delivering quality, gender‑sensitive and rights‑based SRH services

and information.'

COMMENT (NPW): The sexual and reproductive health community is the only area of global health that has successfully advocated for healthcare information to be included in the Sustainable Development Goals. HIFA has been making the case for several years for this to be recognised across *all* areas of health, most recently in our BMJ Global Health paper 'Universal access to essential health information: accelerating progress towards universal health coverage and other SDG health targets' https://gh.bmj.com/content/5/5/e002475

Neil Pakenham-Walsh, HIFA Coordinator, neil@hifa.org www.hifa.org