NEW DELHI: Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has called for providing commodity security and easy access to reproductive health care for the poor. This is a must for achieving not only national development goals but also the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), he said.

Timely availability of reproductive health commodities alone could create the conditions for achieving the MDGs. Reproductive health security was dependent on speedy and assured supply of commodities and services.

He was chairing a session on "Commodity Security" at a three-day international conference on "Partners in Population and Development (PPD)" that began in Agra on Monday.

Building up a shared understanding among the PPD countries on key challenges in ensuring sustainable access to commodities and evidence-based interventions in resource constrained settings would go a long way in achieving the MDGs.

Ensuring access to commodities in a market environment was also critical. Subsidies would have to be targeted in such a manner that commodity security was not compromised for the poor and market strategies must ensure that access was maximised.

The Minister earlier spoke of the rising demand and insufficient support, which were creating severe shortages of contraceptives and condoms for family planning as well as for prevention of sexually-transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS.

PPD goals

The PPD, a forum of 19 developing countries accounting for 54 per cent of the global population, is discussing integration of the goals of population control and development with the MDGs, as well as integration of reproductive health with HIV/AIDS services and commodity security. It will also take stock of the progress in achieving the PPD goals.

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