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This is the current situation:

- Millions of women lack access to family planning services they need and want. The unmet need for contraception is especially acute among adolescents in the developing world, averaging two to four times that of the general population.

- 1 in 16 women in sub-Saharan Africa dies from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. This compares with 1 in every 2,800 in highly-developed countries.

- Providing safe, effective, voluntary family planning services prevents death and disability, spurs development, and fights poverty.

- Family planning and obstetric care could radically reduce maternal deaths and injuries.

- Involving men in sexual and reproductive health as clients, partners and agents of social change is crucial to promoting healthier lives for women and girls, gender equality and men's health.

- The financial resources needed to meet the developing world's sexual and reproductive health needs amount to US36 billion per year by 2015.

The report outlines a number of recommendations to integrate sexual and reproductive health into development strategies, including:

- incorporating sexual and reproductive health in both national poverty reduction strategies and strengthened health systems

- integrating, monitoring and evaluating sexual and reproductive health within health systems

- allocating enough funds for commodities, supplies and logistics while strengthening health systems and

- meeting the needs of special populations, particularly young people, the poor and victims of humanitarian crisis.

The UN Millennium Project calls for a massive scale up and expansion of family planning, maternal health, and HIV/AIDS prevention efforts throughout the developing world by mobilising political will, institutional capacity and technical and financial resources.

The Public Choices, Private Decisions: Sexual and Reproductive Health and the Millenium Development Goals report can be downloaded from the link below:

http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/MP_Sexual_Health_screen-final.pdf