A/HRC/45/19 through an interdisciplinary project developed by a group of lawyers, health professionals, researchers and activists, focused on a human rights-based approach to access safe and legal abortion, which was one of the leading causes of maternal mortality and morbidity in the country. The work, which was still ongoing, had been combined with case-specific legal advice, to enable health professionals to understand better where abortion services were permitted under the current legislation, and also influenced the way health professionals engaged in public discourse concerning the legislative proposal to liberalize the abortion law in Argentina. 17. Marie Stopes International explained how it engaged with health workers on human rights principles through a values-clarification exercise in order to identify potential underlying biases, and put the client at the heart of its programming. With respect to ensuring quality services, Marie Stopes International reported on training conducted in Yemen for government health officers to support the organization in the area of quality assurance for sexual and reproductive health services. That had enabled the organization to maintain high quality standards while also helping to strengthen the health system. 18. Several submissions also highlighted efforts to ensure the affordability of services. For instance, Marie Stopes International had used a voucher programme in Yemen to enable women to access maternal health and contraceptive services. UNFPA explained that in India, there were different safety-net programmes to ensure that the poorest women had access to antenatal and neonatal care. In Burundi, UNFPA had increased the availability of emergency obstetric and newborn care services by providing equipment and training at health facilities. 1. Programmes in humanitarian settings 19. Recognizing that the majority of maternal deaths occur in crisis settings, there has also been dedicated attention to ensuring human rights in these contexts. The Human Rights Council has prioritized this issue, requesting that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights organize a meeting to discuss the issue.10 As a result of the expert group meeting, efforts are under way to build understanding and capacity to apply human rightsbased approaches in these contexts, taking account of their specificities. This includes clarifying what human rights require and dispelling misunderstandings, as well as considering the complicated circumstances that crisis scenarios present that have an impact on the identification of duty bearers, the availability of health services and the existence of accountability mechanisms (see A/HRC/42/24). There has been more of a focus on rightsbased approaches to sexual and reproductive health in guidance and policy documents in humanitarian spaces, including The Sphere Handbook: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response, 11 the Inter-Agency Field Manual on Reproductive Health in Humanitarian Settings, including the Minimum Initial Service Package for sexual and reproductive health,12 and Economic and Social Council resolution 2019/14, adopted in the context of the humanitarian affairs segment at its 2019 session, in which the Council urged States to ensure reliable and safe access to the services that were important in protecting women and girls from preventable mortality and morbidity that occurred in humanitarian emergencies. 2. Addressing discrimination, and programming for marginalized groups 20. Some stakeholders highlighted health interventions specifically designed to address discrimination and focused on marginalized women and girls who were at high risk of maternal mortality and morbidity. For instance, New Zealand indicated that Maori, Pacific and Asian women were overrepresented in the maternal morbidity statistics compared with non-Maori, non-Pacific and non-Asian women. Both Australia and New Zealand had developed health plans with the aim of addressing inequalities resulting from structural discrimination in the health-care system. 10 11 12 6 Council resolution 39/10. See https://spherestandards.org/handbook-2018/. See https://iawgfieldmanual.com/.