In September, 1994, thousands of policymakers, activists, health specialists, and members of the donor community gathered in Cairo, Egypt, for what turned out to be a unique UN International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD), a true turning point. The Cairo conference put the ideas of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights, choice, women's empowerment, a life-cycle approach, and gender equity at the centre of the international agenda, and signalled the end of the so-called population era. Instead of pursuing demographic targets via family-planning programmes, the goals of the ICPD Programme of Action (signed by 179 countries) were to achieve universal access to safe, affordable, and effective reproductive health care and services, including those for young people, and promoted a gender perspective.The package of services incorporated family planning information and contraceptives, skilled care at pregnancy and childbirth, safe abortion services where and when abortion is legal, and treatment and management of sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS. Governments set a realistic timeframe of 20 years (ie, to 2015), to accomplish the goals established in the Programme of Action.1Where are we now, 12 years after Cairo? What have been the main successes and where have we fallen short? This Comment and other articles in The Lancet Sexual and Reproductive Health Series describe achievements and setbacks, as well as the challenges that have been faced for more than a decade.
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