A/RES/69/148 Intensification of efforts to end obstetric fistula areas and among the poorest women and girls, through, where appropriate, the establishment and distribution of health-care facilities and trained medical personnel, collaboration with the transport sector for affordable transport options, the promotion of and support for community-based solutions and the provision of incentives and other means to secure the presence in rural and remote areas of qualified health-care professionals who are able to perform interventions to prevent obstetric fistula; (e) To develop, implement and support national and international prevention, care and treatment and socioeconomic reintegration and support strategies, policies and plans to eliminate obstetric fistula, to develop further multisectoral, multidisciplinary, comprehensive and integrated action plans in order to bring about lasting solutions and put an end to maternal mortality and morbidity and obstetric fistula, including by ensuring access to affordable, accessible, comprehensive, highquality maternal health-care services and, within countries, to incorporate into all sectors of national budgets policy and programmatic approaches to address inequities and reach poor, vulnerable women and girls; (f) To establish or strengthen, as appropriate, a national task force for obstetric fistula, led by the Ministry of Health, to enhance national coordination and improve partner collaboration to end obstetric fistula; (g) To strengthen the capacity of health-care systems, in particular public health systems, to provide the essential services needed to prevent obstetric fistula and to treat existing cases by increasing national budgets for health, ensuring that adequate funds are allocated to reproductive health, including for obstetric fistula, ensuring access to fistula treatment through increased availability of trained, expert fistula surgeons and permanent, holistic fistula services integrated into strategically selected hospitals, thereby addressing the significant backlog of women and girls awaiting surgical repair of fistula, and encouraging communication among fistula centres to facilitate training, research, advocacy and fundraising and the application of relevant medical standards, including consideration of the use of the World Health Organization manual entitled “Obstetric Fistula: Guiding Principles for Clinical Management and Programme Development”, which provides background information and principles for developing fistula prevention and treatment programmes, as appropriate; (h) To mobilize funding to provide free or adequately subsidized maternal health-care and obstetric fistula repair and treatment services, including by encouraging networking among providers and the sharing of new treatment techniques and protocols to protect women’s and children’s well-being and survival and to prevent the recurrence of subsequent fistulas by making post-surgery followup and the tracking of fistula patients a routine and key component of all fistula programmes, and also to ensure access to elective caesarean sections for fistula survivors who become pregnant again in order to prevent fistula recurrence and to increase the chances of survival of mother and baby in all subsequent pregnancies; (i) To ensure that all women and girls who have undergone fistula treatment, including the forgotten women and girls with incurable or inoperable fistula, are provided with and have access to comprehensive health-care services, holistic social integration services and careful follow-up, including counselling, education, family planning and socioeconomic empowerment, for as long as needed, through, inter alia, skills development and income-generating activities, so that they can overcome abandonment and social exclusion, and to develop linkages with civil society 6/8