BOX 1. A BRIEF SITUATION DESCRIPTION AND KEY FIGURES Maternal mortality, gender-based violence, lack of access to appropriate health care and an absence of family planning services drive violations of reproductive rights across the world. An estimated 287,000 maternal deaths occurred worldwide in 2010; most of them preventable. However, the aggregate data masks gross inequalities both within and between countries. For instance, the risk of dying during pregnancy, and when giving birth, for a woman in a developing region is 15 times higher than in developed regions. In total, 99% of maternal deaths occur in the developing world, mainly in Africa and South Asia.4 In addition, more than 200 million women annually are estimated to experience life-threatening complications in connection with pregnancy, often leading to serious disability.5 Three million babies die in the first week of life and even more are stillborn every year.6 The main reason behind the large number of preventable maternal deaths, health complications, infant mortality and underpinning the disparities between and within the world’s regions, is a lack of quality health care. Despite an increased focus on voluntary family planning, among other interventions, there are still major lacunae in the availability of contraceptive services, not least in sub-Saharan Africa and certain other developing countries where unmet need is close to 25 per cent while the global average is around 11 per cent.7 In absolute figures, more than 120 million women have unmet needs for family planning services.8 The affected women are left unable to decide freely on whether to have children and the number and timing of child bearing, and in addition are rendered more at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). 4 Trends in Maternal Mortality, 1990 to 2008, WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and World Bank, 2010. 5 World Health Organization, Journal Paper. The Lancet: Anna Glasier, A. Metin Gülmezoglu, George P Schmid, Claudia Garcia Moreno, Paul FA Van Look. “Sexual and reproductive health: a matter of life and death.” The Lancet Sexual and Reproductive Health Series, October 2006. 6 WHO, “Making Pregnancy Safer”, In: Maternal and New Born Health Topics. Available from: http://www.who.int/making_pregnancy_safer/topics/maternal_mortality/en/index.html 7 Calculated as the percentage of women between 15 and 49 years of age not using contraception, either married or in another form of domestic union, who are fecund and sexually active and who do not want any more children or would like to delay the birth of their next child for at least two years, statistics taken from “How Universal is Access to Reproductive Health, A review of the evidence” (UNFPA, 2010). 8 United Nations. Millennium Development Goals Report, 2011. Available from www.un.org/ millenniumgoals/11_MDG%20Report_EN.pdf. 15