Publication

Gaps in sexual and reproductive health care account for nearly one fifth of the worldwide burden of illness and premature death, and one third of the illness and death among women of reproductive age. These gaps could be closed and millions of lives saved with highly cost-effective investments, according to Adding it Up: The Benefits of Investing in Sexual and Reproductive Health Care, a report released by The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

Policy makers, governments and donor agencies have vastly undervalued the diverse returns— economic and social as well as in health—such investments would bring, the report stresses. It calls improvements in reproductive and sexual health essential to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals set by world leaders in 2000.