Commission on Population and Development Ends – Governments Call for Increased Efforts to Promote Sexual and Reproductive Health and Reproductive Rights in Development Policies

UN Commission on Population and Development Identifies Gaps in Human Rights and Health of Women and Young People

The 47^th session of the Commission on Population and Development ended in New York after dawn on Saturday morning with a call from governments to promote gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as key priorities for sustainable development. The Commission urged world leaders to integrate these rights into the new development framework that will replace the Millennium Development Goals, which are set to expire in 2015.

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Youth perspectives on CPD47

Young people have been active in the  47th Session of the Comission on Population and Development [CPD] in New York City all week. These are some of their perspectives on youth participation in this important event by members of YSAFE— Cecilie, Umid and Juraj:

Different world regions face different problems, but there is common ground for all the young people taking part in the 47th session of CPD. That common ground is found when it comes to  meaningful youth participation, SRHR and human rights for everyone. 

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Accelerating contraceptive choice post-2015

Jackson Chekweko, Executive Director of Reproductive Health Uganda, an IPPF Member Association, writes:

We must accelerate contraceptive choice Post-2015...

With the 47th Session of the Commission on Population and Development  (CPD47) now taking place, it's needless to emphasize how critical the issues that will be discussed are for people in developing countries and particularly in Africa. Today 90 per cent of women with unmet need for family planning live in developing countries with the greatest gap being in Africa. Although the continent has experienced much progress in universal access to family planning in the last decade, contraceptive choices are still largely limited to condoms, pills and injectables.

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Hopes for CPD47 – Mahtab Akbar Rashdi, Pakistan FPA

Mahtab Akbar Rashdi, of the Family Planning of Pakistan and a Member of the Provincial Parliament (Sindh Province), attending the 47th Session of the Commission of Population and Development (CPD47), writes: 

In Pakistan each year hundreds of women die from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth and newborn babies continue to lose their lives because their mothers lacked basic maternal health care. My deepest personal hope is that at CPD47  we all agree on actions necessary to reduce the needless suffering and death which result from the lack of education, basic health care, and family planning and from the lack of control women have over their lives.

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Day 3 of the Commission on Population and Development

Day three of informal negotiations was long with discussion and interventions being wide ranging both in terms of content and the government interventions.

The morning was devoted to the most critical, but most contentious part of the document, namely the paragraphs relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights. The cluster of paragraphs relating to paragraph 5 took three hours to discuss. The listing and ordering of key sexual and reproductive health services was hotly debated, as was the additional language relating to violence and discrimination, comprehensive sexuality education and abortion. India and Nepal led the way to champion abortion language and were backed up by Papua New Guinea, who advanced the agenda by calling for the inclusion of language on the removal of legal barriers to abortion.

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CPD47: day 2 and the second reading of the draft resolution

Day two of CPD and day one of negotiations drew to a close with a number of patterns emerging. The first half of the morning was dominated by calls from Nigeria, Egypt, Cameroon and Pakistan to revert to a procedural document that would describe the ICPD operational review process, but contain little content in terms of SRHR priorities. 

The afternoon took a more positive turn. More countries made more positive interventions, making the overall voice for sexual and reproductive health and rights stronger and more diverse.

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OWG-10 discusses SDG goals and targets

The Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals at its 10^th session began its discussion on goals and targets with delegations putting forward their suggestions on the areas as included in the revised focus areas using the various clusters as defined by the Co-Chairs. The discussions on sexual and reproductive health and rights took place under the cluster on gender equality; education; employment and decent work for all; and health and population dynamics.

While a substantial number of “troikas” and individual countries supported the inclusion of sexual and reproductive health and rights, others put forward different combinations based on ICPD language. Some considered that it should be included under a gender equality stand-alone goal; others said it should go under a health goal; and a few said it could go under either or both.

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UN Commission on Population and Development begins its work in New York

The 47^th Session of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD) opened on Monday 7 April, the main agenda item being the review of, and advance priorities for the future implementation of the ICPD.

800 NGOs had registered to attend CPD to participate. However, despite the ECOSOC guidelines for civil society participation and the removal of restrictions, which would bar non-ECOSOC-accredited NGOs from attending, participation was restricted. They had to queue for hours to gain access to the building and were issued two-day passes while the CPD is lasting for five days.

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Major Groups statement on health to OWG-10

Representatives of the Major Group and Other Stakeholders made presentations to the 10^th Session of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development (OWG-10) during the afternoon session on Wednesday 2 April. Sarah Gold, International Women’s Health Coalition spoke on behalf on a number of Major Groups on a stand-alone goal on Ensuring healthy lives.

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African CSOs release Pre-CPD Consultations Communiqué

We have received the following from the International Planned Parenthood Federation: 

In September 2013 African civil society held consultations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia that culminated in a consensus position of civil society on African priorities, including the need to mainstream 'human rights' in all development policies.

A follow-up pre-CPD and Post 2015 consultative meeting was then held in Nairobi, Kenya on 5- 7 March 2014. The meeting was organized by the International Planned Parenthood Federation Africa Region (IPPFAR) in collaboration with United Nations Population Fund and aimed to continue the momentum on mobilizing civil society around Beyond 2014 and post 2015.

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