Addressing the "International Inter-ministerial Conference on South-South Cooperation in the Post-ICPD and MDGs" here, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad lamented that universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and care has not been ensured even after 20 years of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).
"It is time we acknowledge that we need to make massive and strategic investments for universal access to affordable and appropriate sexual and reproductive health services," he said.
He said nations must agree on a new set of goals and it would be a mistake not to build on the success achieved so far.
"Let us not undermine the work we have collectively done, in fact we have much to be proud of - momentum for gender equality and human rights has never been stronger...We must arrive at an informed agenda for post-2015," he noted.
Azad said maternal mortality rates have fallen by 47 per cent since the first ICPD - but that is far short of MDG goal of 75 per cent reduction. Similarly, child mortality has declined by 41 per cent globally, but falls short of the goalpost of 66 per cent reduction.
The minister said studies show that meeting the unmet needs in South, Central and South-East Asia alone would reduce maternal deaths by 75 per cent, newborn deaths by 52 per cent and unintended pregnancies by 74 per cent.