AFRO-NETS> Ipas Launches Global Initiative to Reduce Maternal Deaths

[Merrill Wolf <WolfM@ipas.org>]

Ipas Launches Global Initiative to Reduce Maternal Deaths
---------------------------------------------------------

Chapel Hill, NC, February 20, 2002 - Ipas, an international nongov-
ernmental organization that has worked for nearly three decades on 
women's reproductive health, is pleased to announce the launch of a 
three-year global initiative called the Program to Advance Access to 
Safe Abortion Care. 

"This program will not only save women's lives but will also allow us 
to take a great step forward in helping women to exercise their sex-
ual and reproductive rights," said Elizabeth Maguire, President of 
Ipas. "Nearly 40 women every minute undergo unsafe abortions. Each 
year, millions of women are injured, and more than 70,000 die. These 
deaths and injuries are entirely preventable."

The new initiative is the first phase of a long-term effort to assure 
that women everywhere - especially poor women - have access in their 
communities to safe, high-quality treatment for complications of un-
safe abortions and, in circumstances where it is not against the law, 
elective abortion. "Comprehensive abortion care must also include 
counselling and services for post abortion family planning and other 
reproductive health needs, to prevent repeat abortions," said Ms. 
Maguire. 

Initially focused in ten developing countries of Africa, Asia and 
Latin America, the program builds on previous initiatives undertaken 
by Ipas and other partners to reduce unsafe abortion, lower maternal 
mortality and morbidity, and enable women to make and safely act upon 
their own reproductive choices. Activities will concentrate on train-
ing health care providers, expanding the availability of technologies 
for reproductive health care, and educating policymakers and the pub-
lic about reproductive rights, as well as unsafe abortion and ways to 
reduce it. 

Support for the program comes from European donor governments, which 
have pledged about US$ 2.5 million each year for the next three 
years, and from private foundations. Applying new resources to these 
goals begins to address longstanding financial neglect of abortion 
care and women's related reproductive health and rights concerns in 
developing countries. Recognizing the magnitude of the need, Ipas is 
committed to mobilizing even more resources to address these chal-
lenges in the decade ahead.

European donors contributing to the new program include the United 
Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID), the Swedish 
International Development Agency (Sida) and the Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs of Finland. In addition, Ipas receives funds from the Minis-
try of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands for related activities.

The program is envisioned as a cooperative endeavor involving Ipas 
and a wide range of global, national and community-level partners. 
Such partners will include donors, governments, nongovernmental or-
ganizations including women's advocacy groups, and private-sector 
health care providers. 

Among the organizations with whom Ipas plans to cooperate closely in 
providing technical support to national health systems is the World 
Health Organization (WHO). In a recent interview in the journal For-
eign Policy, WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland cited govern-
ments' agreements in several recent United Nations documents and re-
affirmed WHO's position, in line with these agreements, that "when 
abortion is legal, women should have access to it."

Ipas expects the new program to help strengthen international commit-
ment to this important principle and to enhance the quality of life 
for many women, their families and communities.


--
The International Consensus on Safe Abortion Care

The world's governments took a clear and strong position on abortion 
at a Special Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations in 
1999 to review progress in implementing the Programme of Action of 
the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) 
held in Cairo in 1994. They recommended specifically that "....in 
circumstances where abortion is not against the law, health systems 
should train and equip health-service providers and should take other 
measures to ensure that such abortion is safe and accessible." (Para-
graph 63 iii)

For more information contact:

Merrill Wolf
Deputy Director, Public Affairs and Media
Tel: +1-919-960-5612
mailto:wolfm@ipas.org
http://www.ipas.org

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