How health systems can accelerate progress towards Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 on child and maternal health by promoting gender equity

This briefing highlights the key implications for health systems policy and policy-makers in the European Region of the final run-up to achieving the Millennium Development Goals in 2015, particularly the two related to maternal and child health.

The briefing is a follow-up to World Health Assembly resolution 63.15, which urges Member States to renew their commitment to prevent and eliminate maternal, newborn and child mortality and morbidity. The measures to achieve this include health systems strengthening and integrated strategies and programmes to address the root causes of gender inequities and the lack of access to adequate care and reproductive health. The briefing focuses on the actions that health systems can take to address gender inequity within and beyond the health sector.