A/HRC/15/60 15/17 Preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and human rights: follow-up to Council resolution 11/8 The Human Rights Council, Reaffirming its resolution 11/8 of 17 June 2007 on preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and human rights, Reaffirming also the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and its review conferences, including the outcome document of the 15-year review of the Programme of Action contained in Commission on Population and Development resolution 2009/1 of 3 April 2009, Commission on the Status of Women resolution 54/5 of 12 March 2010, and the targets and commitments regarding the reduction of maternal mortality and universal access to reproductive health, including those contained in the 2000 Millennium Declaration (General Assembly resolution 55/2 of 8 September 2000) and the 2005 World Summit Outcome (General Assembly resolution 60/1 of 16 September 2005), Welcoming the recent initiatives relevant to preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and human rights, including the Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health, the Group of Eight Muskoka initiative on maternal, newborn and under-five child health, as well as the convening of the fifteenth ordinary session of the summit of the African Union in Kampala, from 19 to 27 July 2010, with the theme “Maternal, infant and child health and development in Africa”, the launch of the African Union campaign in accelerated reduction of maternal mortality in Africa and the “Africa cares: no woman should die while giving life” campaign, Welcoming also the outcome document of the High-level Plenary Meeting of the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals, held in New York from 20 to 22 September 2010, entitled “Keeping the promise: united to achieve the Millennium Development Goals”, and reaffirming in particular the deep concern expressed therein by the Assembly at the alarming global levels of maternal and child mortality and its grave concern at the slow progress being made on reducing maternal mortality and improving maternal and reproductive health, as well as the commitments to accelerate progress in order to achieve Millennium Development Goal 5 on improving maternal health, and Millennium Development Goal 8 on a global partnership for development, Welcoming further the information contained in the recent report entitled “Trends in maternal mortality”, released jointly by the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Population Fund and the World Bank, showing a decrease in the number of women and girls dying annually owing to complications during pregnancy and childbirth, but expressing continued grave concern at the still unacceptably high global rate of preventable maternal mortality and morbidity, Convinced that increased political will and commitment, cooperation and technical assistance at the international and national levels are urgently required to reduce the unacceptably high global rate of preventable maternal mortality and morbidity, Welcoming the holding of the interactive panel debate on preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and human rights, on 14 June 2010 at its fourteenth session, Recognizing that gender equality, the empowerment of women, women’s full enjoyment of all human rights and the eradication of poverty are essential to economic and social development, and that achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women is 40 GE.11-17043