Commitments made at the London Summit on Family Planning published

The full set of commitments made at the London Summit on Family Planning in July has been published. Please be sure to share your governments commitment with your partners, parliamentarians and other civil society organizations.

As reported by IPPF, a 2-day workshop will be held in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday, 17 and 18 September to discuss the next steps to the London Summit.  

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Carrying out the Global Survey in Uganda

Dr Betty Kyaddondo, Head of the Family Health Department of the Population Secrearariat in Uganda,whites that:

The process for carrying out the Global Survey in Uganda started in early 2012 with meetings at the regional level in-country involving all the districts. From the outset NGOs have been included on the technical and other groups that are overseeing the process.

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Are YOU involved in the Global Survey?

The Global Survey has been sent out by the UN Regional Commissions to all countries, usually to the Foreign Ministers for distribution to the various ministries for completion though the process will differ from country-to-country. The standardized questionnaire has been designed to ensure comparability of data and is the result of a series of consultations with global civil society, international organizations and the United National system as well as Governments.

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Sub-regional Workshop on MDGs for Central and East Asia

A Sub-regional Workshop on Millennium Development Goals and the post-2015 Development Framework for Central and East Asia will be held in Almaty, Kazakhstan 26-28 September 2012. It is being organized by the Asian Development Bank, ESCAP and UNDP and participants will be senior officials, directly in charge of MDGs at Planning and Environment Ministries, by invitation only.

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Moving towards the Thematic Consultation on Health

Background

Nine areas for thematic consultations have been identified as part of the process for developing the Post-2015 Development Agenda. One of these is the Health Consultation, which is being coordinated by UNICEF and WHO with a conference being proposed to be supported by Sweden. Currently there are three health Millennium Development framework (MDGs) out of the eight, namely MDG 4: reduce child mortality; MDG 5: improve maternal health; and MDG 6: combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases). Going forward, however, it is unlikely that there will again be three health goals. At the same time, as demonstrated by the High Level Meeting of the General Assembly on Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), other health issues are also on the agenda. 

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Summary of Report of the UN Secretary-General -- A life of dignity for all: accelerating progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and advancing the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015 (A/68/202)

I           Introduction

The report points out that “more than a billion people still live in extreme poverty” and that “far too many people face serious deprivation in health and education, with progress hampered by significant inequality related to income, gender, ethnicity, disability, age and location.” (para 6) It also stresses that the work on achieving the MDGs by the end of 2015 remains unfinished and that meeting these commitments will provide “the best possible position from which to agree upon and implement a universal agenda for sustainable development after 2015.” (para 7) The future we want, the report of Rio + 20, underscored that “poverty eradication is an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.” The Secretary-General also reiterated the phrase from the report of the High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2105 Development Agenda (HLP) that “no person anywhere should be left behind.” This is emerging as the lynchpin for the post-2015 development agenda and issues such as sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender should take it into account moving forward. (para 11)

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NGOs Beyond 2014 website launches a comprehensive timetable to 2015

Over the past year we have all been hearing about more and more additions to the processes leading to the ICPD Beyond 2014 and the Post 2015 Development Framework. In addition there are other processes, eg the Women Deliver Conference that will contribute directly, or indirectly, into both of the above. The NGOs Beyond 2014 website has therefore developed a comprehensive timetable which will provide NGOs with the various deadlines and other time frames as they are identified.

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Further update information on the #GYF (Global Youth Forum) for ICPD Beyond 2014

More information is available on the Global Youth Forum: Youth Rights at the Heart of Development, which stresses the Steering Committee for #GYF commitment to underscore the active participation of young people in development and in defining the course of development to come. 

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New Sustainable Development Initiative announced by UN Secretary-General

According to IPS (the Inter Press Service) the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has announced the launch of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), a new independent global network of research centres, universities and technical institutions to help find solutions for some of the world’s most pressing environmental, social and economic problems. It will work with a wide range of stakeholders, including business, civil society, UN agencies and other international organizations to identify and share the best solutions to achieve sustainable development.

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Update on Global Survey on relaunched ICPD Beyond 2014 website

The ICPD Beyond 2014 website has been re-launched and provides up-to-date information on the Global Survey process. It can be found on the Global Survey webpage with links to the Global Survey tool, Country Implementation Profiles and details of Regional Conferences on the UN Economic Commissions’ websites. Those for the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia-Pacific are currently active. 

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