The United Nations
Foundation has made Women and Population a
priority program area. Through problem-solving,
partnerships, advocacy, and project support the UN
Foundation provides assistance to its UN partners
to respond to the challenges unique to women and
girls. In order to be effective, it has focused on
two key areas -- adolescent girls and the quality
of health care services. Success is already
apparent, and more is emerging as policies create
a more enabling environment, networks are forged
and strengthened, and interventions change young
people’s lives.
Additionally, the UN
Foundation has provided cataytic support to
mobilizing a response to meet the global shortfall
in reproductive health commodities, such as
condoms. The UN Foundation has also supported
projects that provide women with access to
livelihood skills and economic opportunities.
Adolescent
Girls There are 1.5 billion
adolescents in the world today. 14 million
children are born world wide each year to
adolescent girls. Sexually transmitted diseases,
including HIV/AIDS, threaten the health and
survival of young women and affect the health of
their newborns. Girls have limited access to
transportation and meager financial resources and
face services that are geared to adult women.
These factors contribute to unwanted pregnancies,
unsafe abortions, and the spread of sexually
transmitted diseases. Girls continue to be
disproportionately disadvantaged in their access
to education. Girls' living arrangements, domestic
roles and responsibilities, social and physical
mobility and work are determinants of their well
being, their status and their ability to set the
terms of sexual relations and childbearing.
Extensive research has shown that improvements in
the lives of adolescent girls translate into
improvements in their health as well as that of
their children, reductions in fertility and high
returns to overall economic productivity.
The United Nations
Foundation’s Women and Population Program supports
United Nations efforts to increase socio-economic
opportunities for adolescent girls and women while
increasing access to and improving the quality of
reproductive health and family planning services.
The UN Foundation focuses the majority of its
resources within the Women and Population Program
on adolescent girls, using multifaceted approaches
that address their health and human rights. These
approaches include: a concentration on livelihood
skills; education; youth development; life skills
and participation; economic access and
empowerment; and reproductive health services and
information.
Quality of
Care Improving the quality of
reproductive health services is important in terms
of development and improves the effectiveness of
the services provided. We now know that these
services are more effective if, for example,
people have access to a range of contraceptive
methods and can receive care from someone who
explains the potential side effects, gives
guidance on how to discuss family planning with
their partners or deals with sexual violence.
Often the improvement comes
through attitudinal changes that do not require
significant new resources. When service providers
spend the time to answer questions and work to
ensure that an individual's needs are met, the
client is more likely to use and benefit from the
services available. When people use services the
way they are intended, they become even more
cost-effective as well.
Recognizing that
government-level commitment to a high quality of
care for citizens is irreplaceable, the UN
Foundation supports UN efforts with national-level
structures and governments. The UN Foundation
programs have achieved success, as access is
increased, and quality is improved - and satisfied
health service clients, mean healthier
individuals.
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