A/CONF.171/13 English Page 56 growth, it is equally essential that the design and implementation of structural adjustment programmes incorporate the social dimension. Objectives 8.3. The objectives are: (a) To increase the accessibility, availability, acceptability and affordability of health-care services and facilities to all people in accordance with national commitments to provide access to basic health care for all; (b) To increase the healthy life-span and improve the quality of life of all people, and to reduce disparities in life expectancy between and within countries. Actions 8.4. All countries should make access to basic health care and health promotion the central strategies for reducing mortality and morbidity. Sufficient resources should be assigned so that primary health services attain full coverage of the population. Governments should strengthen health and nutrition information, education and communication activities so as to enable people to increase their control over and improve their health. Governments should provide the necessary backup facilities to meet the demand created. 8.5. In keeping with the Declaration of Alma Ata, all countries should reduce mortality and morbidity and seek to make primary health care, including reproductive health care, available universally by the end of the current decade. Countries should aim to achieve by 2005 a life expectancy at birth greater than 70 years and by 2015 a life expectancy at birth greater than 75 years. Countries with the highest levels of mortality should aim to achieve by 2005 a life expectancy at birth greater than 65 years and by 2015 a life expectancy at birth greater than 70 years. Efforts to ensure a longer and healthier life for all should emphasize the reduction of morbidity and mortality differentials between males and females as well as among geographical regions, social classes and indigenous and ethnic groups. 8.6. The role of women as primary custodians of family health should be recognized and supported. Access to basic health care, expanded health education, the availability of simple cost-effective remedies, and the reappraisal of primary health-care services, including reproductive health-care services to facilitate the proper use of women’s time, should be provided. 8.7. Governments should ensure community participation in health policy planning, especially with respect to the long-term care of the elderly, those with disabilities and those infected with HIV and other endemic diseases. Such participation should also be promoted in child-survival and maternal health programmes, breast-feeding support programmes, programmes for the early detection and treatment of cancer of the reproductive system, and programmes for the prevention of HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases. /...