Access to basic health care, expanded health education, the availability of simple cost-effective remedies, and the reappraisal of primary health-care services, including reproductive health-care services to facilitate the proper use of women’s time, should be provided. Governments should ensure community participation in health policy planning, especially with respect to the long-term care of the elderly, those with disabilities and those infected with HIV and other endemic diseases. Such participation should also be promoted in child-survival and maternal health programmes, breast-feeding support programmes, programmes for the early detection and treatment of cancer of the reproductive system, and programmes for the prevention of HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases.