Analysis: Protecting global sexual and reproductive health and rights
Reimagining multilateralism for global sexual and reproductive rights
Reprinted from the BMJ 2026; https://www.bmj.com/collections/SRHR
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394 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2026-100497 (Published 15 September 2026) Cite this as: BMJ 2026;394:e100497
Protecting global sexual and reproductive health and rights
The global landscape for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) has been transformed. Sweeping changes to US global health and development policies, declining multilateral cooperation, coordinated anti-rights mobilisation, and growing financial pressures have undermined decades of progress in advancing gender equality and access to essential health services. At the same time, shrinking civic space and increasing attacks on international norms and institutions are weakening the systems that have long protected and advanced SRHR. Yet around the world, governments, health professionals, researchers, and civil society are responding with new forms of leadership, advocacy, and mobilisation.
This BMJ Collection, developed in partnership with the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy in New York, USA, explores how SRHR can be protected and advanced in a changing and threatened global context. From reimagining multilateral institutions and strengthening civil society advocacy to tackling the economic constraints that limit investment in SRHR and learning from successful policy responses, this Collection explores practical strategies for building more resilient, equitable, and accountable systems. Moving beyond a description of the challenges facing SRHR, it offers solutions – how advocates, researchers, health professionals, governments, and civil society can mobilise, forge new partnerships, and advance renewed forms of multilateral cooperation to safeguard SRHRs for the future.
The following are the title of the seven articles that make up this collection, each one provides a one sentence summary of that article. Below those is the full text of the first article from the analysis section by Clarisa Bencomo and colleagues, which argues absolutely convincingly against the proposal to combine UNFPA and UN Women as a means of saving money. More broadly, the situation the UN finds itself in overall is dire, thanks to Donald Trump and other UN heavies who believe they have the right to run the world but not anyone else.
Editorial
Health and political leaders must seize the opportunity to build lasting systems for governance, financing, and delivery of sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice, argues Chelsea Clinton
Opinion
United Nations reform must protect sexual and reproductive health and rights
Decades of progress risk being undone unless the UN prioritises its commitments to human rights, argues Terry McGovern
Analysis
Reimagining multilateralism for global sexual and reproductive rights (see full text of this section below)
Amid proposals to restructure the UN and merge UNFPA and UN Women, Clarisa Bencomo and colleagues argue that strong specialised multilateral institutions remain essential for advancing gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights (The full text of this section is reproduced below, with permission of the authors and the BMJ)
Civil society resistance to anti-rights mobilisation
Advocates must use history, evidence, and multilateral leverage to protect sexual and reproductive health from attempts to erode rights, write Terry McGovern and colleagues
New York state resistance to federal regression of sexual and reproductive rights
As anti-rights actors have consolidated political power in the US, restrictions on sexual and reproductive health and rights have expanded through judicial, legislative, legal, and fiscal mechanisms. Danielle Greene and colleagues examine how New York’s experience illustrates both the potential and the limits of state level resistance
International fiscal architecture for advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights
Delivering sexual and reproductive health justice requires a new independent and neutral global body where global rights obligations are prioritised, write Attiya Waris and colleagues
Central role of civil society in advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights
Protecting meaningful participation, feminist leadership, and rights based governance amid growing political and financial pressures is essential to sustain gains in sexual and reproductive health, write Jaime M Gher and colleagues