A/RES/50/81 Page 16 2. Development of health education 54. Governments should include, in the curricula of educational institutions at the primary and secondary levels, programmes focusing on primary health knowledge and practices. Particular emphasis should be placed on the understanding of basic hygiene requirements and the need to develop and sustain a healthy environment. These programmes need to be developed in full awareness of the needs and priorities of young people and with their involvement. 55. Cooperation among Governments and educational and health institutions should be encouraged in order to promote personal responsibility for a healthy lifestyle and provide the knowledge and skills necessary to adopt a healthy lifestyle, including teaching the legal, social and health consequences of behaviour that poses health risks. 3. Promotion of health services, including sexual and reproductive health and development of relevant education programmes in those fields 56. Governments, with the involvement of youth and other relevant organizations, should ensure the implementation of the commitments made in the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, 3/ as established in the report of that Conference, in the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development and the Programme of Action of the World Summit on Social Development, 4/ and in the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action for the Fourth World Conference on Women, 5/ as well as in the relevant human rights instruments, to meet the health needs of youth. The United Nations Population Fund and other interested United Nations organizations should continue to take effective steps on these issues. The reproductive health needs of adolescents as a group have been largely ignored to date by existing reproductive health services. The response of societies to the reproductive health needs of adolescents should be based on information that helps them attain a level of maturity required to make responsible decisions. In particular, information and services should be made available to adolescents to help them understand their sexuality and protect them from unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and the subsequent risk of infertility. This should be combined with the education of young men to respect women’s self-determination and to share responsibility with women in matters of sexuality and reproduction. This effort is uniquely important for the health of young women and their children, for women’s self-determination and, in many countries, for efforts to slow the momentum of population growth. Motherhood at a very young age entails a risk of maternal death that is much greater than average, and the children of young mothers have higher levels of morbidity and mortality. Early child-bearing continues to be an impediment to improvements in the educational, economic and social status of women in all parts of the world. Overall for young women, early marriage and early motherhood can severely curtail educational and employment opportunities and are likely to have a long-term adverse impact on the quality of life of young women and their children. 57. Governments should develop comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare services and provide young people with access to those services including, inter alia, education and services in family planning consistent with the results of the International Conference on Population and Development, the World Summit for Social Development and the Fourth World Conference on Women. The United Nations Population Fund and other interested United Nations organizations are to be encouraged to continue assigning high priority to promoting adolescent reproductive health. /...