The Lao People’s Democratic Republic National Growth and Poverty Eradication Strategy (the equivalent of its Poverty Reduction Strategy) marks population issues, including SRH and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), as national priorities, while acknowledging limited success in previous reproductive health initiatives. The current draft for 2011–2015 is targeted towards achieving the MDGs, and priority directions are less explicit in terms of reproductive health (see Box 3). The MDG 5A target is ambitious, given the progress in the previous phase, and in current drafts the MDG 5B target – universal access to reproductive health – does not feature. Securing specific budget allocations.
