Every minute a woman dies due to complications in pregnancy or
childbirth, adding up to half a million women dying every year. Another
10-15 million women suffer serious or long-lasting illnesses or
disabilities.
“No woman should die giving life,” said UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid.
“To have a healthy society, you have to have healthy mothers.”
In many countries, however, progress in maternal health has been slow.
In some, the situation has actually deteriorated over the last 20 years.
“Despite significant progress in the South, the pattern of cooperation has not been commensurate with the comprehensive nature of the commitments contained in the various declarations and other documents on South-South cooperation,” Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations, told IPS. “The existing capabilities and capacities in the South have not been adequately acknowledged and utilised,” he added.
Small island States today called on industrialized countries to take a leadership role at the Bali Climate Change Conference and adopt targets to keep the world from warming past the point where catastrophic impacts would occur.
“No island should be left behind,” said Angus Friday of Grenada, the Chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States. These vulnerable countries, he said, are already feeling the impact of climate change in the form of more hurricanes, cyclone and typhoons.
With more than 2.6 billion people – 40 per cent of the world’s population – lacking access to toilets and other sanitation facilities, the head of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) has urged governments to adopt low-cost technology to ensure adequate sanitation for all.
While the world has made significant progress in improving people’s access to safe water, access to improved sanitation “lags far behind,” UN-Habitat’s Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka said in a message to the World Toilet Summit, which opened today in New Delhi, India.
