A/RES/71/169 Intensification of efforts to end obstetric fistula 3. Stresses the need to address the social issues that contribute to the problem of obstetric fistula, such as poverty, lack of or inadequate education for women and girls, lack of access to health-care services, including sexual and reproductive health-care services, early childbearing, child, early and forced marriage and the low status of women and girls; 4. Calls upon States to take all measures necessary to ensure the right of women and girls to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health, including sexual and reproductive health, and reproductive rights, in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, 3 the Beijing Platform for Action 14 and the outcome documents of their review conferences, and to develop sustainable health systems and social services with a view to ensuring universal access to such systems and services without discrimination, while paying special attention to adequate food and nutrition, water and sanitation, family planning information, increasing women’s empowerment, knowledge and awareness and ensuring equitable access to high-quality appropriate prenatal and delivery care for the prevention of obstetric fistula and the reduction of health inequities, as well as postnatal care for the detection and early management of fistula cases; 5. Also calls upon States to ensure equitable coverage and timely access, by means of national plans, policies and programmes, to health -care services, in particular emergency obstetric and newborn care, skilled birth attendance, obstetric fistula treatment and family planning, that is financially and culturally accessible, including in rural and most remote areas; 6. Further calls upon States to ensure the right to education of good quality for women and girls, on an equal basis with men and boys, and to ensure that they complete a full course of primary education, and to renew their efforts to improve and expand girls’ and women’s education at all levels, including at the secondary and higher levels, including age-appropriate sex education, as well as vocational education and technical training, in order to, inter alia, achieve gender equality, the empowerment of women and girls and poverty eradication; 7. Urges States to enact and strictly enforce laws to ensure that marriage, including in rural and remote areas, is entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses and, in addition, to enact and strictly enforce laws concerning the minimum legal age of consent and the minimum age for marriage and to raise the minimum age for marriage where necessary; 8. Calls upon the international community to provide intensified technical and financial support, in particular to high-burden countries, to accelerate progress towards the elimination of obstetric fistula within a generation, which can contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and leave no one behind; 9. Urges multilateral donors, international financial institutions and regional development banks in the public and private sectors, within their respective mandates, to review and implement policies to support national efforts and institutional capacity-building to end obstetric fistula and to ensure that a higher proportion of resources reach young women and girls, in particular in rural and _______________ 14 Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing 4–15 September 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.13), chap. I, resolution 1, annex II. 4/8