As the world's 193 member states gather at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to debate development goals and current UN reforms, international researchers in a new The BMJ Collection strongly oppose the merger of the United Nations Population Fund (the UN's sexual and reproductive health agency) and UN Women, arguing that it will dilute decades-long multilateral commitments to gender equality.
The BMJ Collection developed in partnership with the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy in New York, USA, highlights the importance of protecting and advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in a shifting global context.
The Collection outlines recent changes to US global health and development policies, deep cuts in funding, and attacks on international norms and institutions that have previously ensured women's and SRHR around the world. Protecting SRHR - which includes access to contraception, safe and effective care during pregnancy and birth, and education for safe and healthy relationships – is fundamental to ensuring health outcomes, gender equality, and wider development.
In response to the changing global landscape, governments, health professionals, researchers, and civil society need strengthened solutions and new forms of leadership, advocacy, and mobilisation.
"The new The BMJ Collection charts both the scale of what is at risk and the concrete paths-fiscal, institutional, and community led-through which progress can be protected and advanced."
Chelsea Clinton
Vice-chair of the Clinton Foundation
Articles in The BMJ Collection
Analysis
Reimagining multilateralism for global sexual and reproductive rights
Amid proposals to restructure the UN and merge UNFPA and UN Women, Clarisa Bencomo and colleagues argue that strong specialised multilateral institutions remain essential for advancing gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights
Civil society resistance to anti-rights mobilisation
Advocates must use history, evidence, and multilateral leverage to protect sexual and reproductive health from attempts to erode rights, write Terry McGovern and colleagues
New York state resistance to federal regression of sexual and reproductive rights
As anti-rights actors have consolidated political power in the US, restrictions on sexual and reproductive health and rights have expanded through judicial, legislative, legal, and fiscal mechanisms. Greene and colleagues examine how New York's experience illustrates both the potential and the limits of state level resistance
International fiscal architecture for advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights
Delivering sexual and reproductive health justice requires a new independent and neutral global body where global rights obligations are prioritised, write Attiya Waris and colleagues
Central role of civil society in advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights
Protecting meaningful participation, feminist leadership, and rights based governance amid growing political and financial pressures is essential to sustain gains in sexual and reproductive health, write Jaime M Gher and colleagues
Opinion
United Nations reform must protect sexual and reproductive health and rights
Decades of progress risk being undone unless the UN prioritises its commitments to human rights, argues Terry McGovern
Editorial
Health and political leaders must seize the opportunity to build lasting systems for governance, financing, and delivery of sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice, argues Chelsea Clinton
