Republished from HRW.org

This week, reality struck home for Afghanistan over the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Ratified by Afghanistan in 2003 during the early heady post-Taliban days when it seemed like a bright future for women was inevitable, CEDAW is a treaty that requires/demands gender equality in access to education, health care, and political participation. It is the basis for global efforts to end violence against women. The Afghan government is failing in many ways to live up to the commitment it made by signing on to CEDAW.

When you ratify a convention you don’t just get a pat on the back and then a pass on your obligations. CEDAW compliance is overseen by a committee of 23 experts, who spent hours Wednesday grilling the Afghan government delegation who showed up in Geneva to defend the government’s efforts on women’s rights. Committee members pointed out many of the issues Human Rights Watch highlighted in our written statement including that now, 10 years after CEDAW was ratified, numerous Afghan laws explicitly discriminate against women, including in one case a law passed since CEDAW was ratified – the Shia Personal Status Law. They also pointed out that even where the laws on the books are good, there are major failings in their implementation, including a majority of girls not in school, physical assaults including murder against women in public life, lack of accountability for violence against women, and on and on. Not to mention a real risk of backsliding as international support and interest dries up as the end-2014 international troop deadline approaches.

The Afghan government delegation answered some questions but dodged and downplayed many others (including refusing to address question of why the marriage age is lower for girls than boys, and rebutting the suggestion that women have no meaningful access to divorce by saying women can divorce husbands “for bad breath” ). The Afghan chair, Dr. Mohammad Hashimzai, a longtime senior member of the Ministry of Justice, said there is a real commitment across the government to implementing CEDAW. “Afghanistan faces so many challenges,” Dr. Hashimzai said. “But with the continued help of the international community and the help of this [CEDAW] Committee, we will succeed.”

Human Rights Watch will be watching closely to see how deep that government commitment really is – and whether the international community still cares about Afghan women after the military pull-out in 2014.

“Cancer should not be a death sentence anywhere in the world as there are proven ways to prevent and cure many cancers,” Oleg Chestnov, Assistant Director-General for Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health at the World Health Organization (WHO), said in a statement about the global capacity survey.

“In order to reduce exposure to risk factors leading to cancer and ensure that every person living with cancer gets access to appropriate care and treatment, comprehensive cancer control programmes need to be set up in every country.”

A functional cancer control plan includes prevention, early detection, treatment and care, according to WHO. The agency’s recent survey of 185 countries and their national capacity for noncommunicable diseases revealed major gaps in cancer control planning and services.

Even if countries developed cancer plans or policies, many of them are struggling to move from commitment to action, the survey showed.

Seventeen per cent of African countries and 27 per cent of low-income countries have cancer control plans with a budget to support implementation, according to the survey.

In contrast, South-east Asia generally has the greatest percentage of countries with policies, plans or strategies related to cancer, and all of them have some type of policy for diabetes, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and tobacco use, which are known risk factors for some cancers.

Overall, fewer than half of the countries have population-based cancer registries critical to capture high-quality information on the numbers and types of cancer cases. The data helps to develop, implement and evaluate effective national policies for cancer control.

To support Member States’ capacity to collect reliable data, WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and partners introduced the Global Initiative for Cancer Registry Development in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (GICR).

“This initiative is supporting mainly those countries that lack the resources to efficiently fight the rapidly growing cancer burden,” said Christopher Wild, Director of IARC.

“Better data on cancer occurrence will help governments to make the most of their limited resources and direct funds and activities to the areas where they are needed most.”

The first regional hub was launched in Mumbai, India, last year, with the regional hub in Izmir, Turkey, to become operational this year.

Political commitments from world leaders to address cancer have gained steam recently, WHO said. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last month called on participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to strengthen efforts to achieve global targets related to health, stressing the imperative of building a better future for all.

This year’s World Cancer Day, marked on 4 February, focuses on improving general knowledge around cancer.

“In the Democratic Republic of Congo, far too many mothers die of maternity-related causes even though they are able to access healthcare relatively easily,” said Eustache Ouayoro, World Bank Country Director for the Democratic Republic of Congo. “The main problem is the quality of primary healthcare that women get at clinics, and this new World Bank grant will directly help improve services for them.”

The grant will be used to reduce untimely deaths among women and promote safer childbirth by boosting capacity to deliver good obstetric care at health facilities. It will also help train staff to serve women who have suffered gender-based violence, and will make modern contraceptives more easily available.

The health status of women in the DRC reflects stark gender inequalities, with nearly one in five women being underweight, and women in cities being at considerably higher risk of getting HIV. To try to close this gender gap in health, the grant will help expand nutrition activities at clinics for both women and children, and help continue the supply of anti-retroviral treatment to those living with HIV/AIDS.

Finally, the grant will support a pilot project in Katanga that uses performance-based financing to improve services at health facilities, expanding it by more than 1 million beneficiaries. Although preliminary results are encouraging, it is important to complete the ongoing evaluation of this approach so that the DRC can take an informed decision on whether to adopt it more widely.

The World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), established in 1960, helps the world’s poorest countries by providing loans (called “credits”) and grants for projects and programs that boost economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve poor people’s lives. IDA is one of the largest sources of assistance for the world’s 81 poorest countries, 39 of which are in Africa. Resources from IDA bring positive change for 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day. Since 1960, IDA has supported development work in 108 countries. Annual commitments have increased steadily and averaged about $15 billion over the last three years, with about 50 percent of commitments going to Africa.