A/RES/64/299 (d) Taking action at all levels to address the interlinked root causes of maternal mortality and morbidity, such as poverty, malnutrition, harmful practices, lack of accessible and appropriate health-care services, information and education and gender inequality, and paying particular attention to eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls; (e) Ensuring that all women, men and young people have information about, access to and choice of the widest possible range of safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning; (f) Expanding the provision of comprehensive obstetric care and strengthening the role of skilled health-care providers, including midwives and nurses, through their training and retention in order to fully utilize their potential as trusted providers of maternal health-care services, as well as expanding family planning within local communities and expanding and upgrading formal and informal training in sexual and reproductive health care and family planning for all health-care providers, health educators and managers, including training in interpersonal communications and counselling. Millennium Development Goal 6 – Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases 76. We commit ourselves to accelerating progress in order to achieve Millennium Development Goal 6, including by: (a) Redoubling efforts to achieve universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support services as an essential step in achieving Millennium Development Goal 6 and as a contribution to reaching the other Millennium Development Goals; (b) Significantly intensifying prevention efforts and increasing access to treatment by scaling up strategically aligned programmes aimed at reducing the vulnerability of persons more likely to be infected with HIV, combining biomedical, behavioural and social and structural interventions, and through the empowerment of women and adolescent girls so as to increase their capacity to protect themselves from the risk of HIV infection and through the promotion and protection of all human rights. Prevention programmes should take into account local circumstances, ethics and cultural values, including information, education and communication in languages most understood by local communities and should be respectful of cultures, with the aim of reducing risk-taking behaviours and encouraging responsible sexual behaviour, including abstinence and fidelity; expanded access to essential commodities, including male and female condoms and sterile injecting equipment; harm-reduction efforts related to drug use; expanded access to voluntary and confidential counselling and testing; safe blood supplies; and early and effective treatment of sexually transmitted infections, and should promote policies that ensure effective prevention and accelerate research and development into new tools for prevention, including microbicides and vaccines; (c) Dealing with HIV/AIDS from a developmental perspective, which requires a national network of sound and workable institutions and multisectoral prevention, treatment, care and support strategies, addressing the stigmatization of and discrimination against people living with HIV and promoting their social integration, rehabilitation and greater involvement in HIV response, as well as 22

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