Burma will address
the issue of women’s health, family planning and contraceptives, following a
funding initiative by Britain and other donors, which was announced on
Wednesday in Naypyitaw.
The UK’s development agency, the Department for
International Development (DFID), Marie Stopes International, and the UNFPA -
the United Nations Population Fund organized the press briefing to support
voluntary family planning services and reduce maternal and infant mortality.
“The UK is
committed to improving maternal and child health globally and in Myanmar,” said
Paul Whittingham, the DFID director in Burma “The British prime minister is
today hosting the London Summit on Family Planning, where partners from across
the world will come together to support the right of women and girls to decide,
freely and for themselves, whether, when and how many children they have.”
The group’s worldwide goal is two fold: sustain family
planning information and services for 260 million women; and meet the
contraceptive needs of an additional 120 million women in the world’s poorest
countries by 2020.
Whittingham said his government intends to contribute
£80 million over the next four years to the multi-donor Three MDG Fund for
health.
Family planning, or as its termed in Burma by the
Ministry of Health, “birth-spacing,” is about saving lives, and protecting
mothers and children from death, ill health, disability and underdevelopment,
said a group statement.
As a key component of reproductive health, access to
birth-spacing information, commodities and services is a fundamental right for
every woman and community if they are to develop to their full potentials, said
the group.
“Marie Stopes International in Myanmar, with the
leadership of the Department of Health, and together with local and
international NGOs, serves to improve access to those needs for the communities
in Myanmar—particularly the underserved.” said Dr. Sid Naing, the director of
Marie Stopes International in Burma.
Over the past 30 years, UNFPA has supported
reproductive health programmes in Burma in partnership with the Ministry of
Health and NGOs, and has been the main supplier of contraceptives to the
country, said the group.
Despite that support, Abdel-Ahad, the UNFPA
representative for Burma, said, “Nearly one-fourth of Myanmar married women of
reproductive age would like to practice contraception but do not have the means
to do so.”
Efforts by the government and development partners to
ensure the availability of modern contraceptives are critical to preventing
unsafe abortions, he said, which is the leading cause of maternal death and
disability in the country.
Mizzima News
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