Thank you, Mr. Chair, vice-chairs and honourable committee members.
Thank you for inviting UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, to address you today, and thank you for Canada's continued, generous support to UNFPA. We are delighted to have Canada back as a member of the UNFPA executive board through the year 2024, and we look forward to your guidance during this period. It's the support of partners that spells the difference between life and death for millions of women and girls around the world each year.
There can be moments of great joy amidst tremendous suffering, as we saw in the wake of last month’s devastating earthquake, when Khawla Hassan Al-Ali was able to give birth safely to four healthy babies, quadruplets, delivered by Caesarean section at a UNFPA-supported clinic in northwest Syria.
Nasreen Faroug Balla, a young Sudanese woman, was in critical condition when she finally reached a UNFPA field hospital in a settlement for Ethiopian refugees, after being carried three kilometres through rain and mud and suffering from pre-eclampsia. Nasreen's blood pressure spiked dramatically and she lost consciousness. Fortunately, the doctors were able to perform an emergency Caesarean section, and both she and her baby boy survived and received the care they needed to recover.
Of course, not every story has such a happy ending. Every two minutes, a woman dies during pregnancy and childbirth—an estimated 287,000 women in 2020, according to a new report by UNFPA and our United Nations partners. Very often, this woman is an underage girl.
Most of these deaths are preventable. One of the most cost-effective ways to prevent maternal deaths is to educate and deploy midwives. Midwives can deliver 90% of all essential sexual, reproductive, maternal and newborn health services. However, currently the world faces a global shortage of 900,000 midwives. With support from Canada and other partners, UNFPA works to close the gap and to create a well-trained midwifery workforce.
Also very critical is reducing unintended pregnancy that so often ends in unsafe abortion, which is among the leading causes of maternal death. UNFPA research shows that nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended. Our research also shows what works to address this: increasing access to a range of quality contraceptives, improving comprehensive sexuality education for young people, and protecting a woman’s right to decide whether, when and with whom she wishes to have children.
We will also need to tackle harmful norms and practices that undermine women and girls’ human rights, their bodily autonomy and their access to life-giving health care. Why? The figures speak for themselves. One in three women experiences physical or sexual violence in her lifetime. One in five girls is married or in a union before the age of 18. More than four million girls are at risk of female genital mutilation this year. Just 56% of partnered women are able to make their own decisions about whether to have sex, use contraception or seek health care.
We know that changing this will require partnerships, first and foremost with communities, with civil society organizations, with traditional and religious leaders and, critically, with men and boys.
The benefits for both individuals and their societies are enormous. According to UNFPA research, every dollar invested in ending preventable maternal deaths and unmet family planning needs by the year 2030 would yield $8.4 back in economic benefits by 2050.
UNFPA certainly welcomes Canada's feminist approach to international assistance. Your leadership is a beacon of hope at a time when push-back on gender equality and women and girls’ rights is intensifying.
UNFPA looks to Canada as a strong ally in advancing gender-transformative change, rooting out disparities, discrimination and inequalities, and defending the rights and choices of all people in all their diversities.
I'll end by saying that we look forward to continuing our work together toward a world where every pregnancy is intended, every childbirth will be safe and every woman and every young person can choose the direction their life will take, transform their community and help build a more equitable, prosperous and sustainable future.
Thank you very much.