This Situational Monitoring Report on the State of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) in the region is the first annual report for the Caribbean Observatory on SRHR. It will pave the way for subsequent
annual reports. The objective is to examine crucial issues against key indicators and to establish a baseline for monitoring Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the
region, allowing assessment of progress, gaps, and opportunities.
The Caribbean region has made significant progress towards creating an enabling environment for SRHR and to address GBV. To date, progress has been made primarily in the areas of legislative change and development of policies to improve universal access to quality sexual reproductive health information and services and laws to enhance protection for survivors, expansion of the categories of persons protected against gender-based violence (GBV) and increased penalties for perpetrators of GBV. Overall, despite progress at the legislative and policy level, implementation in most countries has been somewhat limited, uneven, and insufficient to ensure everyone has access to the information and services to ensure their SRHR and live a life free from violence. And where there is progress, it is unevenly distributed among different population groups. Addressing disparities in health and social outcomes, and having the disaggregated data to guide evidence-informed policy and programmes to do so, is one of the most urgent needs identified in this situational analysis.
The need for ongoing concerted efforts and collaboration between communities, organized civil society, governments, and development partners in order to achieve national goals and meet regional and international
commitments is one of the key reasons for the development of the Caribbean Observatory on SRHR. The Observatory provides a virtual platform for information sharing and monitoring to support evidence-informed
advocacy and responsive laws, policies and practices.
