Thomson Reuters Foundation: OPINION: Reproductive health, rights and choices: A vision created 25 years ago is more urgent than ever
Bjorn Andersson, U.N. Population Fund’s regional director for Asia and the Pacific.

“…[Women worldwide] are benefitting from a women’s empowerment movement galvanized 25 years ago through the Programme of Action that emerged from the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo. … The world of today is very different from that of 1994. We are seeing significant pushback on women’s rights and choices, impacting essential health services including family planning and contraception, even in countries that have long been champions. Against this backdrop, and on this World Contraception Day, we urge governments to build on the gains under ICPD by investing all the more in sexual and reproductive health under the umbrella of universal health coverage. … [W]ithout achieving the vision of ICPD, we quite simply won’t achieve the vision of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals — that of leaving no one behind” (9/26).