In 2026, over 40 countries will hold national elections, affecting more than 1.6 billion people globally — presenting both opportunities for progress and serious risks of rollback on health and SRHR agendas. Anti-rights actors are increasingly coordinated across borders, seeking to capture political and multilateral spaces.

In regions like South Asia, transitions to new governments following youth-led revolutions have signaled democratic energy but also created uncertainty, threatening to push health and SRHR agendas to the sidelines during prolonged policy transitions.

Across settings including Palestine, Sudan, Ukraine, Lebanon, Iran, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, international humanitarian and human rights law obligations are being severely undermined. Civilians — especially women, girls, and gender-diverse people — face grave violations of their rights to health, safety, dignity, and survival.

Health infrastructure, including hospitals and clinics, is being attacked, damaged, or destroyed. Health workers are displaced, detained, or killed. Access to essential services — including contraception, maternal health care, support for survivors of sexual violence, and safe abortion — is severely restricted, with direct consequences for preventable morbidity and mortality.

Global military expenditure now reaches approximately USD 2.4 to 2.8 trillion annually, significantly exceeding investment in primary health care and gender equality.

The persistent underfunding of SRHR represents a failure to fulfill governments’ right-to-health obligations. Debt burdens, shrinking fiscal space, and market-driven health reforms weaken public health systems and accelerate the shift toward privatized, fragmented care — undermining availability, accessibility, acceptability, and quality.

Rising out-of-pocket costs and increased taxation to meet debt obligations further entrench inequality, disproportionately affecting women in all their diversity, people living in poverty, marginalized communities, informal workers, and others already excluded from equal enjoyment of rights.

Official development assistance (ODA) from DAC members fell to USD 174.3 billion in 2025 — a 23.1% decrease compared to 2024. Public investment in health, including SRHR, remains chronically insufficient, while militarization, debt servicing, and austerity continue to divert resources from economic, social, and cultural rights.

Attacks against gender equality and bodily autonomy are intensifying. Civil society organizations and feminist movements — essential to rights realization through service delivery, accountability, and rights claiming — are increasingly restricted through legal, financial, and administrative measures. Shrinking civic space and rising authoritarian practices undermine the rights to freedom of expression, association, and participation.

The global architecture meant to uphold solidarity and human rights is also weakening. Proposals to merge UNFPA and UN Women risk diluting mandated responsibilities on SRHR and gender equality, weakening institutional capacity to uphold rights in practice.

Climate change is accelerating in both scale and severity — driving increased heat exposure, extreme weather events, air pollution, infectious disease transmission, food insecurity, malnutrition, and mental health impacts. These impacts directly undermine the right to health and disproportionately affect marginalized populations.

Pollution, toxic waste, rapid urbanization, deforestation, and resource extraction are direct threats to SRHR and the right to health. Toxic air and water pollution increase respiratory illness, reproductive health complications, and maternal mortality. As populations concentrate in informal settlements, access to clean water, sanitation, and healthcare becomes precarious, and exposure to communicable diseases, maternal health complications, and gender-based violence increases.

By 2030, climate change is projected to push an additional 132 million people into poverty. In humanitarian and climate-affected settings, SRHR services are often among the first disrupted and the last restored.

Rising food insecurity — driven by conflict, climate shocks, economic instability, and weak governance — is undermining health and SRHR worldwide. Women, girls, and gender-diverse people are often the first to sacrifice meals, deepening gender inequality and exposing them to harmful coping strategies such as early marriage or transactional sex.

In Asia and Africa, prolonged droughts and displacement have left millions food insecure, with pregnant women unable to access adequate nutrition or safe delivery services. In the Pacific Islands, climate-induced disruptions to agriculture and fisheries have reduced food availability, limiting access to SRHR services. Adulteration of food — through contamination, unsafe additives, and poor regulation — is a growing threat, with documented links to malnutrition, reproductive health complications, and chronic illness.

Digital repression, disinformation, and algorithmic censorship are increasingly restricting access to accurate, evidence-based SRHR information. Human rights defenders face surveillance, harassment, and technology-facilitated gender-based violence, undermining the rights to privacy, safety, and freedom of expression.

Under-resourced mental health systems fail to meet rising needs, leaving young people especially vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and stigma. Across countries in Asia and Africa, young women increasingly rely on mobile platforms for SRHR information and mental health support — but in the absence of robust legal frameworks, many face risks of misinformation and cyber-violence that exacerbate health challenges and overall wellbeing.

The lack of robust legal frameworks undermines governments’ obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill the right to health and SRHRJ. Outdated or poorly enforced laws leave communities vulnerable to unsafe practices, discrimination, and denial of services. Weak sexual violence laws, gaps in legislation, and poor implementation of laws meant to end harmful practices perpetuate injustice.

In many contexts, consensual relationships between adolescents are criminalized rather than protected. Laws that fail to address marital rape, permit child marriage, or criminalize same-sex relationships and abortion further erode rights. Without strong legal protections, austerity measures, environmental harms, and social backlash are compounded, reinforcing inequality and eroding public trust.