A/HRC/18/27 a significant rate of abandonment of mutilation and cutting at scale in a number of countries, including Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, the Gambia, Guinea, GuineaBissau, Kenya, Senegal and Uganda. 37. The approach recognizes that mothers do not have their daughters cut with the intent to harm but to secure their marriage ability and the honour of the family. It also recognizes that the practice persists because of a social norm whereby people’s behaviours are conditioned by the behaviour of others and encourages communities to decide themselves to end the practice. Fundamental issues, including gender inequality, are raised, which lead to other positive results in terms of the status of women. Similar initiatives could more fully give effect to a human rights-based approach by understanding and appreciating the social dynamics behind harmful practices and empowering people to abandon them rather than passing a negative judgement on individuals and communities upholding these practices. 2. Programmes to engage men as partners in healthy sexual relationships 38. The International Planned Parenthood Federation implements programmes to engage young men in promoting gender equality through acknowledging that men can promote safer sexual practices and support their partner in healthy pregnancy and safe delivery. Such programmes have a strong influence on maternal health outcomes: young women able to negotiate condom use with their partner can better protect themselves against unwanted pregnancies, sexually-transmitted infections and HIV. Male partners who are engaged in these issues often provide better support during pregnancy and childbirth and are less likely to be violent towards women during pregnancy. 3. Maternal death reviews 39. Since 2003, UNFPA, UNICEF and WHO and other development partners have been supporting African ministries of health to institutionalize maternal death reviews. Five methods were introduced: verbal autopsy, facility-based reviews, near-miss review of severe morbidity, confidential enquiries into maternal deaths and criterion-based clinical audits.42 40. Overall, the development of national policies and guidelines for maternal death reviews has significantly improved, particularly in Comoros, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda and Uganda. By 2010, 65 per cent of African countries reported that maternal deaths were reviewed and analysed.43 41. Similar initiatives to institutionalize maternal death reviews could give effect more fully to a human rights-based approach by involving communities in the planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation to inform and ensure ownership of the design; expanding coverage from pilot to district to national scale, ensuring dissemination of the guidelines and programme support at the provincial and district levels; and establishing an active advocacy group at the national level to ensure civil society engagement and to build capacity. A specific budget line for the review in the health sector helps to ensure it is not lost among competing priorities. 42. Egypt has integrated child health and family planning programmes, upgraded facilities to strengthen safe motherhood programmes, combined oral rehydration programmes with the expansion of water and sanitation systems, and trained health-care workers in parallel with community outreach programmes in order to be on track to reach Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. 42 43 12 WHO, Beyond the Numbers, Geneva, 2004. UNFPA submission.