Violence against women and girls is an unacceptable violation of basic human rights. It also is so widespread that ending it must be a public health priority. An estimated one in three women is beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused by an intimate partner during her lifetime. Intimate partner violence has been shown to increase the risk of HIV infection by around 50 per cent, and violence (and the fear of violence) deters women and girls from seeking services for HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.

The purpose of this handbook is to provide national human right institutions with tools and guidance on how to integrate reproductive rights into their work.

The findings of this assessment indicates that gender-related barriers pose significant obstacles to the uptake of services that prevent new HIV infections among children and keep mothers alive—obstacles that require urgent attention. Without dedicated attempts to overcome these gender-related barriers, current efforts will meet with limited success, and the needs and rights of both women and children will remain compromised.

The State of World Population 2012 explains why family planning is a right, examines the challenges in ensuring that all women, men and young people are able to exercise that right and suggests actions that governments and international organizations can take to give everyone the power and the means to decide freely and responsibly how many children to have and when to have them.

The High-Level Meeting on AIDS took place in 2011. More than 30 Heads of State, Government and Vice-Presidents attended the meeting. On the final day of the High-Level Meeting on AIDS, UN Member States adopted a resolution which will guide country responses to HIV over the next five years.

A progress report to World Health Assembly World Health Organization (WHO), 2011.

This progress report examines a plan to tackle problems of poor nutrition through awareness campaigns and policies involving health, education and agriculture.

Studies indicate that the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has changed in a number of ways. Most encouragingly, the practice is declining. This can be observed when looking at data from countries in which at least two surveys are available, showing that the prevalence has reduced in a number of countries.

The Commission on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health presented an advance copy of its final report, “Keeping Promises, Measuring Results”. The report recommends a 10-point accountability framework to increase the likelihood that the USD $40 billion pledges made towards the Strategy for Women's and Children's Health are honoured and spent in the most effective way to save lives.

This report examines a number of success stories in the fight against HIV. Examples come from countries such as Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Nigeria and the Caribbean region.

Case studies from Ethiopia, Malawi, Nepal, and Rwanda: The case studies highlight policy innovations to improve and accelerate access to sexual and reproductive health, improved outcomes, and continuing actions to achieve universal access.

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.

Conceptual and practical information on engaging men and boys in romoting gender equality and health are presented. Specific topics include sexual and reproductive health; maternal, newborn and child health; fatherhood; HIV and AIDS prevention, care and support; and prevention of gender-based violence.

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.