Nairobi, 22 October --- African governments and other stakeholders with an interest in Reproductive Health have been urged to go beyond piecemeal activities and embrace comprehensive and coordinated approaches, in collaboration with partners, while addressing Reproductive Health concerns in the Region. 
This call was made Tuesday in Nairobi, Kenya, by the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Ebrahim M. Samba, in a message to the official opening of the inaugural meeting of the Regional Reproductive Health Task Force, an advisory body established to advise his office on reproductive health issues.

The 19-member body, a multidisciplinary, broad-based group of African experts, is charged with strengthening coordination mechanisms among key actors and partners in the area of reproductive health. It also works to enhance the overall cost-effectiveness of Reproductive Health activities at the regional and national levels between WHO Member States and key partners in the Region.

"Strengthening of Reproductive Health partnerships will increase resource capacity, avoid duplication, improve coordination and lead to better implementation of activities," the Regional Director said in the message read on his behalf by Dr Doyin Oluwole, Director of the Division of Family and Reproductive Health at the WHO Regional Office for Africa (AFRO).

Dr Samba underlined the need to improve family and community practices for better maternal and newborn health, saying that this would require creating and reinforcing community awareness of the need for their participation in the provision of emergency obstetric care. He added: "Community members, and men in particular, must assume responsibility for getting pregnant women to receive, in a timely fashion, the needed care even when public services are unavailable. "

He also stated that in spite of inadequate resources and competing priorities, WHO had taken steps to make a difference in the Reproductive Health lives of people in the Region.

Among the successes recorded by WHO in this respect, he said, included aggressive advocacy efforts resulting in the recruitment of focal points in 44 out of the 46 countries in the Region, and the adoption, by 39 countries, of the Making Pregnancy Safer Initiative in their 2002-2003 action plans. In addition, there has been a marked reduction in maternal mortality rates in three countries in the Region: Cape Verde (76/1000,000 live births), Mauritius (4/1000,000 live births) and Seychelles (0/1000,000 live 39 countries).

In spite of these modest achievements, daunting obstacles still remain, Dr Samba concedes, highlighting some of the challenges which include: low contraceptive prevalent rates (2% to 46%) which do not allow women to delay motherhood, space births, or protect themselves against Sexually Transmitted Infections, including HIV/AIDS; the fact that one in 13 women faces the risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes during her lifetime, compared with one in more than 4,000 women in the developed world; generally limited access of women to resources including, education, good nutrition, decision-making power and social services; insufficient emphasis on male participation in Reproductive Health activities; poor coordination and low levels of investment by governments, agencies and stakeholders of Reproductive Health activities.

Other challenges listed by Dr Samba are: the heavy and rising burden of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, particularly on women; the virtually forgotten area of newborn care (despite the fact that peri-natal and newborn deaths account for 60% if infant mortality rates); the persistence of many harmful practices, including Female Genital Mutilation; the high concentration of HIV transmission in young people in the 10 to 24 year age bracket, and the persistence of malaria as a major cause of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality as well as intra-uterine growth retardation.

Turning to the Task Force members, the Regional Director described their inaugural meeting as "historic" and "a milestone in the work of the WHO in the African Region".

In spite of the gloomy picture he painted of the Reproductive Health situation in the Region, Dr Samba was optimistic about the future. He hoped that the Task force members would work towards helping to achieve WHO's reproductive health vision which is to ensure that "All the people of the African Region should enjoy, within the next 25 years, an improved quality of life through a significant reduction of maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality, unwanted pregnancies and Sexually Transmitted Infections, and through the elimination of harmful the practices and sexual violence as well as the promotion of health sexual relationships, responsible parenthood and gender equity."

For further information, please contact

Dr Doyin Oluwole Director, Division of Family and Reproductive Health 
World Health Organization - Regional Office for Africa 
P.O. Box 6 Brazzaville, Congo 
Email: oluwoled [at] afro.who.int
Tel: 1 321 953 9478; In Nairobi: Tel: (254-2) 271 79 02; 271 91 41 
Fax: (254-2) 271 91 41; 271 91 42