Breaking through the development silos: sexual and reproductive health and rights, Millennium Development Goals and gender equity - experiences from Mexico, India and Nigeria

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Acknowledgements

Funding for this work was provided by the John D & Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, which does not however bear any responsibility for the content of the work. References for this chapter, in-depth reports on all three countries and recommendations for action can be found in the full report at http://www.dawnnet.org/uploads/documents/SRHR.pdf. This introductory chapter, slightly condensed, and with several additions of new evidence, is reprinted with kind permission of DAWN, who retain the copyright.

Notes

* Authors of this content by country are as follows. Erika Troncoso for the Mexico report; Renu Khanna with Anagha Pradhan and Lakshmi Priya for the India report; and Ngukwase Surma and Mary Okpe for the Nigeria report.

* The Human Poverty Index was first introduced in the 1997 UN Human Development Report and for developing countries it is essentially a measure of whether people are being deprived of a long and healthy life, depth of knowledge and understanding about the world around them, and a decent standard of living. It therefore represents an inverse correlation to the Human Development Index. (UNDP, 1997)

* In May 2013, the removal of conditionalities based on age and parity was approved for high performing states.

* The original MDGs did not include any reference to sexual or reproductive health, let alone rights. Therefore, women’s and other civil society groups spent a number of years advocating for an MDG target on universal access to reproductive health which was finally included in 2007 as MDG 5b. (Nowicka, 2010)

* Tribals is the accepted term in India for people who are viewed as the original forest dwellers, dalits the lowest castes.

† Legal reforms to sex work followed from strong debate among sex worker unions and other advocacy groups on the benefits of decriminalization vs. legalization.

† However, Imo state passed a very liberal abortion law in August 2013, which states that a woman “shall have the right to determine the processes concerning reproduction in her body.” Opposition forced it to be withdrawn again very soon afterwards, however. http://dailypost.com.ng/2013/08/28/governor-okorocha-under-fire-for-passing-abortion-bill-into-law/.

* The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (1971) was amended in 2002 and 2003 to include approval of medical abortion, decentralizing regulation of abortion services to the district level and punitive measures to prevent unsafe abortion. (Hirve, 2004)