Introduction

This introduction presents some of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book is the product of the 1991 National Council for International Health's (NCIH's) Conference on "Women's Health: The Action Agenda." The conference was launched on a note of both rage and hope—rage at the inequities and neglect of the past and signs of hope for the growing recognition of the need for improvements in women's health and the prospects for change. The Conference celebrates twenty years of the alliance of international health practitioners and policy makers concerned with global health issues. In these two decades great strides were made in providing preventive health. Today, 80 percent of the world's children are immunized against infectious diseases. Progress has also been made in providing children with life saving treatment of diarrheal diseases. In this decade the child survival initiative has been an effective strategy to mobilize resources, advocacy and action to save children from needless death.