As a member of the UN Women’s Major Group, the Guttmacher Institute, a leading research and policy organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), welcomes this opportunity to contribute to the Forum’s review of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
As we mark the 10th anniversary of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we must begin by raising the alarm. Any serious discussion of SDG 3 implementation must recognize that the global community faces an unprecedented loss of resources due to reckless foreign aid cuts, restrictive policies, and crushing debt burdens that prevent developing countries from making progress toward this goal. In addition to this devastating loss of resources, the defunding and dismantling of the Demographic Health Surveys will limit our ability to monitor the consequences of these cuts, particularly with regard to population health and global development. SDG 3 will likely be most impacted by this loss of critical data infrastructure and accountability, followed closely by SDG 5, which focuses on gender equality.
Yet, the damage extends far beyond these two SDGs: gender equality and the right to the highest standards of physical and mental health, which must include sexual and reproductive rights, fundamentally underpin progress on nearly all SDGs and targets. Guttmacher has documented the social, economic and health benefits of investing in comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services, and the evidence is clear: such investments yield enormous returns. Advances in SRHR—respecting bodily autonomy, enabling people to choose their partners and improving access to contraception—drives progress not only in gender equality, but also across critical development priorities such as economic growth, population nutrition, peace and security, and climate change resilience.
As we approach the 2030 deadline to meet the SDGs, we face enormous challenges on multiple fronts. This includes the growing influence of movements opposed to human rights rooted in gender and reproductive autonomy as well as governments backtracking on their commitments to SRHR and gender equality. The choice before us is stark: we can either rise to defend the fundamental rights that underpin all sustainable development or watch the promise of the 2030 Agenda slip away. We cannot achieve the SDGs without SRHR—and we cannot achieve SRHR for all without acting now.