Today's evidence, tomorrow's agenda: implementation of strategies to improve global reproductive health.

The Alliance for Women's Health deliberated on critical gaps and emerging issues related to women's health, focusing on contraception, safe abortion care, HIV, and cervical cancer prevention. Despite the health, socioeconomic, and development benefits of family planning, up to 222 million women have an unmet need for modern contraception. The number of unsafe abortions increased globally, 98% of which occurred in low-resource countries. Fragmentation of services for HIV and cervical cancer prevention and treatment fail to maximize opportunities to reach women within reproductive, maternal, and child health services. The FIGO 2012 PreCongress Workshop elaborated the role of societies of obstetricians-gynecologists in implementation of actions to increase access to modern methods of contraception to help individuals meet family planning intentions. Human rights principles underpin the imperative to ensure equitable access to a wide range of modern methods of contraception. The role of task shifting/sharing in different models of service delivery was elaborated. Actions from the International Conference on Population and Development on safe abortion care and integration of effective contraception were reaffirmed. A call was made to increase access to integrated HIV and cervical cancer prevention, screening, and management. Cross-cutting strategic approaches to accelerate progress include evidence-based information to stakeholders and continued education in these areas at all levels of training. A call was made to advocate for a budget line item for sexual and reproductive health, including family planning and engaging the demand side of family planning, while involving men to enhance uptake and continuation.

Addressing critical gaps in achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH): the case for improving adolescent SRH, preventing unsafe abortion, and enhancing linkages between SRH and HIV interventions.

The new target for achieving universal access to reproductive health was integrated within the revised Millennium Development Goal framework in October 2008, following reaffirmation of this ICPD goal at the 2005 World Summit. To achieve this goal, the Alliance for Women's Health identified 3 issues needing urgent attention: (1) adolescent sexual and reproductive health; (2) unsafe abortions and related mortality and morbidity; and (3) HIV prevention and care. These themes were discussed in Cape Town at the FIGO 2009 Precongress Workshop convened by the Alliance. The critical gaps identified by the Workshop included: the lack of information on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) issues for adolescents, such as safe sexual practices, contraception, risks related to early childbearing; unsafe abortion and its adverse consequences; and inadequate linkages between sexual and reproductive health and HIV interventions that result in missed opportunities for addressing both. Recommendations included the use of innovative information dissemination techniques, ensuring access to family planning and comprehensive abortion care to the full extent allowed by national laws, in accordance with FIGO and WHO guidelines, and promotion of universal HIV counseling and testing with opt-out strategies within SRH services and information on SRH in all HIV services.