Today, 4th September 2011, we commemorate, for the third time, Women's Health Day in the African Region. It is an excellent opportunity to analyse and brainstorm progress made by Member States in delivering on their promises to improve women's health in Africa since its institutionalisation in September 2008. The theme for the 3rd edition is: "Delivering on promises to improve women's health in Africa". The choice of this theme is appropriate, underscoring the need to accelerate delivery on commitments to improve women's health especially as we head closer and closer to the target year 2015. In addition, we have an obligation to report on actions undertaken to improve women's health, the results achieved and the progress made.
Although the deadline of 2015 is only four years away, deaths of women especially during and shortly after delivery remain a major challenge for the WHO African Region notwithstanding all the efforts made at global and regional levels. The Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG5) was set to reduce maternal mortality ratio by three quarters between 1990 and 2015. Yet, between 1990 and 2008, the ratio decreased by only 1.7% in the African Region. Estimated at 640 deaths per 100 000 live births, the average maternal mortality ratio in our Region remains the highest worldwide. Only two of the 46 Member States of our Region are on track to achieve MDG5, twenty have made significant progress; twenty others have made insufficient progress while four have made no progress at all.
Family planning is essential to maternal mortality reduction, yet contraceptive prevalence rate in Africa is among the lowest worldwide and over 22% of contraception needs are unmet in the African Region.
Acts of discrimination and violence continue to expose African women to unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases especially HIV/AIDS and mental disorders. More than 100 million among them undergo female genital mutilations that affect their health, their dignity and their wellbeing. Adolescents are particularly exposed to numerous constraints such as unmet needs for information and sexual education, lack of access to family planning services and contraceptive methods.
In implementing Resolution AFR/RC58/R1 adopted by the Fifty-eighth session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa on Women's health in the WHO African Region: a call for action, the WHO Regional Office set up a multidisciplinary Commission on Women's Health in the African Region to generate evidence on the role of improved women's health in socioeconomic development for improved advocacy and policy action. The report on Women's Health in the African Region, currently being published, will provide much-needed data on the status of women's health in the African Region. Furthermore, it will make recommendations for improving the situation in general and set forth approaches to be adopted to accelerate multisectoral actions to benefit women's health.
In 2009, the African Union launched the Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA) under the slogan ".Africa cares: No Woman should die while giving life." Since then, WHO in collaboration with other partners has already supported 26 countries to launch their own national campaigns. All these initiatives are opportunities to strengthen advocacy for increasing and accessing financial and human resources to improve women's health in Africa.
While the multiplicity of actors and initiatives in favour of health in general and women's health in particular offer great possibilities, they also raise issues of coordination of efforts and harmonization with national mechanisms. Hence, the Regional Office of WHO, in collaboration with partners are promoting the Harmonization for Health in Africa (HHA) in order to reinforce coordination mechanisms and harmonization, thus creating synergies and effective partnerships in the search for solutions for better health of women in Africa.
Convinced that synergy of action among governments and partners is essential to accelerating progress in women's health, WHO make a commitment to give governments firm support to enable them to promote policies for women's health; coordinate initiatives; and establish mechanisms for monitoring the resources allocated to maternal and child health so that the resources produce the expected results and are actually used to benefit the most needy and the most vulnerable.
Today, as we commemorate the third Women's Health Day, I call upon the African political leaders and the international community to deliver on promises made to improve women's health. I also invite all stakeholders to ensure women's effective involvement in taking decisions affecting their health. Women should be given the means to take charge of their own health, to have greater fulfilment in life.