Meeting on ethical, legal, human rights and social accountability implications of self-care interventions for sexual and reproductive health: summary report

Overview

The WHO Department of Reproductive Health and Research convened an expert consultation to discuss, debate and synthesize emerging evidence on ethical, human rights, legal and social accountability considerations related to self-care interventions for SRHR. The Department serves as the Secretariat for the UNDP-UNFPA-UNICEF-WHO-World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP).2 Following the recommendation by HRP’s Gender and Rights Advisory Panel (GAP) and Scientific and Technical Advisory Group (STAG), this meeting focused on exploring how self-care interventions might improve agency and autonomy among vulnerable populations, as well as factors that may inadvertently add to an individual’s burden or imply the abdication of responsibility from the health sector to provide high-quality services.

The meeting summary provided in the remainder of the report captures some of the key points from the main areas of discussion during the two-and-a-halfday meeting.