E/2010/27 E/CN.6/2010/11 “Taking note of the Addis Call to Urgent Action for Maternal Health adopted at the High-level Meeting for Maternal Health, held at Addis Ababa on 26 October 2009, where representatives of Governments, civil society, the private sector and youth recognized three measures to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity and improve reproductive health, including prioritization of family planning, commitment to adolescent health, and strengthened health systems that include sexual and reproductive health; and taking note also of the subsequent Addis Ababa Statement of Commitment resulting from the 2009 International Parliamentarians’ Conference on the Implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, held on 27 and 28 October 2009, “Recognizing the role of the United Nations system, including its funds, programmes and agencies, in particular the leading roles of the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Bank, in eliminating preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and the work under the annual World Health Assembly agenda item on monitoring the achievement of the health-related Millennium Development Goals, and welcoming the ongoing efforts of United Nations entities to promote gender equality, empowerment of women, human rights, development and peace through, inter alia, the mainstreaming of a gender equality perspective in United Nations activities, “Welcoming the ongoing partnerships between a variety of stakeholders at the local, national, regional and global levels aimed at addressing the multifaceted determinants of global health and the commitments and initiatives to accelerate progress on the health-related Millennium Development Goals, including those announced at the high-level event on the Millennium Development Goals held at United Nations Headquarters on 25 September 2008, and at the corresponding follow-up high-level event held on 23 September 2009, “Expressing deep concern that more than half a million women and adolescent girls die every year from largely preventable complications related to pregnancy or childbirth; that, for every death, an estimated twenty additional women and girls suffer from pregnancy-related and childbirth-related injury, disability, infection and disease, and more than 200 million women worldwide lack access to safe, affordable and effective forms of contraception, and further expressing grave concern over the almost nine million children — four million of them newborns — who will die in 2010, chiefly from preventable causes, and that children whose mothers die are ten times more likely to die within two years, “Recognizing that, as reported by the World Health Organization, the causes of maternal death, in order of prevalence worldwide, include severe bleeding (haemorrhage), infections, complications due to unsafe abortion procedures, high blood pressure in pregnancy (eclampsia), obstructed labour, and other direct causes, accounting for an estimated 80 per cent of maternal mortality worldwide, “Expressing deep concern that HIV infection significantly increases the risk of maternal mortality and morbidity, so that, in countries with high HIV prevalence, AIDS-related complications are one of the leading causes of maternal mortality, 10-30576 77