This document outlines the rationale for using policy approaches to engage men in achieving gender equality, reducing health inequities, and improving women’s and men’s health; offers a framework for integrating men into gender equality policies including in the health sector; and highlights successful policy initiatives addressing men in gender equality and health equality programmes.

Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5, Target 5A calls for the reduction of maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015. As part of on-going efforts,  World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank revised and improved earlier methods to estimate maternal mortality in 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2008; and developed methodology to present trends in maternal mortality from 1990 to 2008 at country, regional, and levels.

This document aims to provide sufficient information for policymakers and planners to develop data-driven and evidence-based programmes for preventing intimate partner and sexual violence against women.

Despite considerable progress in the past decades, societies continue to fail to meet the health-care needs of women at key moments of their lives, particularly in their adolescent years and in older age. The report provides the latest and most comprehensive evidence available to date on women's specific health needs and challenges over their life course, from birth to older age.

This landmark World Health Organizatin (WHO) study analyses data from interviews with over 24,000 women in countries representing diverse cultural, geographical and urban/rural settings. The study uncovers the forms and patterns of violence against women across these locations and finds that violence from intimate male partners is a major contributor to women's ill-health.