On 4 September, the European Parliament adopted a right based resolution entitled "Resolution on Maternal Mortality ahead of the UN High-level Event on Millenium Development Goals to be held on 25 September 2008".

The Resolution’s aim is to express the European Parliament’s concerns about the maternal mortality statistics and to call upon the Council and the European Commission to prioritise actions on the Millenium Development Goal # 5 in the next UN High-level Event on the MDGs to be held at UN headquarters in New York, on 25 September. IPPF was represented at this high-level forum by Dr Gill Greer, Director General and Stuart Halford, Advocacy Officer.

The resolution indicates that "the causes of maternal mortality could be prevented by the provision of safe maternal care, access to effective contraception, and legal and safe abortions".

The resolution calls on the Commission and Council to promote access for all women to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health information and services. The services should be affordable, available, accessible and of good quality.

IPPF EN sees this resolution as a useful advocacy tool and has encouraged its members to share the resolution with their national delegations attending the High-level Forum in New York.

The text of the adopted resolution can be downloaded from: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2008-0406+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN