Vienna Statement on Investing in Women’s Health in the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, 1994. Women’s Health Counts: Conference on the Health of Women in Central and Eastern Europe, Vienna, Austria, 16–18 February 1994

‘Women's health must be given the highest level of visibility and urgency,’ stated the 1992 World Health Assembly. This encouraged the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe to launch the Investing in Women's Health initiative. This initiative builds on a network first established in 1991 at a WHO workshop in Vienna for women from the countries of central and Eastern Europe. In 1994, each Member State of the WHO European Region was requested to nominate a focal point for women and health. These counterparts will form the first European Women's Health Forum.

As a result of the widening health gap between the eastern and western halves of the Region and the WHO commitment to equity, the first phase of the initiative focused on 11 countries and one city in the WHO Healthy Cities project. The results of the first year of work on the initiative - a comparative analysis called ‘Highlights on Women's Health’, as well as detailed country profiles - were presented at Women's Health Counts: Conference on the Health of Women in Central and Eastern Europe. The Conference was held in Vienna, Austria from 16 to 18 February 1994. Its 270 participants from 40 countries agreed on the following consensus statement.

The Statement sets out six principles to advance women's health throughout the WHO European Region. Secondly, the Statement establishes six priority areas for action which, although often generalizable throughout the WHO European Region, pay specific attention to women in the countries of central and Eastern Europe and the newly independent states of the former USSR. Finally, it describes six policy mechanisms to strengthen the commitment to women's health in policy reform throughout the WHO European Region.

• Primary Source