The UNFPA State of World Population 2005 report The Promise of Equality - Gender Equity, Reproductive Health (RH) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) stresses that gender equality and RH are indispensable to achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Gender equality and equity

Gender discrimination has a strong negative impact on women in developing countries, and squanders their human capital. When discrimination is removed, women can earn more and tend to reinvest the gains into their families.

Furthermore, the ability to make free and informed choices in reproductive life underpins self-determination in all other areas, and this cannot be separated from gender equality.

If the MDGs are to be achieved, simultaneous investment in education for girls and women, RH information and services, and women's economic rights is needed. In addition, women must be more involved in the political process, too.

The promise of human rights

Despite national and international laws protecting the rights of women, in practice, the denial of the human rights of women remains persistent and widespread. Where laws exist, enforcement is often weak. Gender bias permeates institutions charged with upholding women's rights. In many countries, custom and tradition supercedes official policy on women, with under-age marriage, tolerance of violence against women, and lack of property and inheritance rights.

RH - a measure of equity

RH directly impacts the three MDGs of reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, and combating HIV/AIDS, and has implications for the other five.

"The differences in RH between the rich and the poor - both between and within countries - are larger than in any other area of health care." - UN Millennium Project

Adolescents and youth

Almost three billion people, nearly half the world's population, are under the age of 25. These people are crucial to poverty reduction and development.

Adolescent girls (ages 10 to 19) are particularly vulnerable to early pregnancy, sexual abuse, child marriage, and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation/cutting. They are more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than women in their twenties. Poverty leads many of them into the commercial sex trade.

In addition, there are 15 million AIDS orphans, as well as countless street children who have been abandoned for whom the health risks are high. Yet it is the young people who are the future of any nation.

Male collaboration

Since gender stereotypes limit the possibilities for both men and women, gender equality is a winning proposition for both. Although there are initiatives to encourage, for example, joint participation in decisions on contraception, pregnancy planning, and voluntary HIV testing, the scale of the challenge to have men more actively participate in RH, family life and gender equality is nowhere near being adequately addressed.

Gender-based violence

• Worldwide one in three women has been beaten, coerced into unwanted sexual relations, or abused
• Violence kills and harms as many women aged 15 to 44 as does cance
• $12.6 billion a year is lost in the US alone in increased health expenditure, legal costs, losses in education and productivity as a result of violence against women.
• In Asia, 60 million girls are 'missing' due to prenatal sex selection
• Annually, up to 800,000 people are trafficked across borders - 80% of them women

The SOWP report also discusses the vulnerability of women and young people in situations of humanitarian crisis, and the impact that poverty has on women.

Act now

The report finishes by saying that the world has an unprecedented opportunity to "make poverty history." Nearly three billion people live on less than $2 a day; one woman a minute dies of pregnancy-related complications; 6,000 young people acquire HIV a day. The global promises for action must be fulfilled, as under international law these agreements are more than rhetoric.

The strategies are clear. A plan is in place. The needed resources are attainable. The time to act is now.

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