By Emma Batha

LONDON (AlertNet) - African leaders should increase funding for contraceptive services if they want to reduce poverty and hunger, the prime ministers of Ethiopia and Rwanda said ahead of an international summit on family planning.

Writing in the Lancet medical journal, Rwanda’s Pierre Damien Habumuremyi and Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi said improving access to contraception also was vital for bringing down “unacceptably high” maternal mortality rates on the continent.

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