Morning Briefing

First ladies, health and finance ministers, and parliamentarians from 12 developing countries participating in the U.N. Population Fund's (UNFPA) Global Programme to Enhance Reproductive Health Commodity Security, which was launched in 2007, declared at a U.N. meeting held on Wednesday that "voluntary family planning, secured by a steady supply of contraceptives, is a national priority for saving women's lives," the U.N. News Centre reports. "More than 215 million women in developing countries want to avoid or space pregnancies but are not using modern methods of contraception, according to the UNFPA," the news service writes.