Title: Reproductive health and Millennium Development Goals: sustaining and planning for target attainment

Authors: Vijayan K. Pillai, Leigh Johnson

Addresses: School of Social Work, University of Texas at Arlington, 211 South Cooper Street, P.O. Box 19129, Arlington, TX 76019, USA. ' Laura Bush Institute for Women's health, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, 1400 Wallace Blvd, Amarillo, TX 79106, USA

Abstract: Perhaps, one of the most well-known projects today for planned change is the United Nations Millennium project with eight Millennium Developmental Goals to be achieved by 2015. Of the eight goals, three relate to reproductive health. This study assesses the effect of selected factors on current reproductive health levels in developing countries. Using data for 122 countries, three geographic clusters distinct in reproductive health characteristics were identified. We found that countries with high level of reproductive health enjoyed high levels of reproductive rights. Our findings underscore the relevance of a human rights-based approach towards reproductive health Millennium Development Goals.

Keywords: reproductive health; Millennium Developmental Goals; reproductive rights; cross-national analysis; regional analysis; sustainability; target attainment; developing countries; sustainable development; human rights; sustainable society.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSOC.2010.030560

International Journal of Sustainable Society, 2010 Vol.2 No.1, pp.17 - 25

Published online: 21 Dec 2009 *

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