Rights must be at the centre of the Family Planning Summit — Call for Endorsement

Amnesty International, Center for Reproductive Rights, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN),  International Women's Health Coalition and RESURJ have prepared a statement *Rights must be at the centre of the Family Planning Summit *in advance of the DFID/Gates Family Planning Summit which will be held in London on 11 July 2012 and would like to invite you or your organization to endorse this statement (at bottom of this email), which will be presented to the organisers prior to the Summit.

Click to read more ...

London Family Planning Summit Declaration for Civil Society

The International Planned Parenthood Federation in the email below invites Civil Society Organizations to sign the London Family Planning Summit Declaration:

Click to read more ...

Latin American Consultation for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on the review process for ICPD 2014

Representatives of more than 70 social organizations and movements in Latin America met in Montevideo, Uruguay “to demand higher commitment from their governments to deliver on the promises they made at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo 1994.”

Click to read more ...

Fifth International Parliamentarians Conference on the Implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action (IPCI-ICPD)

On 24 and 25 May 2012 over 300 MPs from 107 parliaments are meeting in Istanbul under the auspices of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, to discuss the progress that the world’s governments are making in their efforts to protect and empower women in their reproductive health and rights.

Click to read more ...

More time needed for finalizing the Rio+20 draft outcome document -- The Future We Want

At the end of the UNCSD Informal Informal Consultations in New York, 23 April – 4 May 2011, delegations had agreed only 21 paragraphs of the draft outcome document ad referendum (pending agreement on the final text) with a further 400 remaining in brackets. With so little time remaining before the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) takes place in Rio de Janeiro on 20-22 June, a further negotiating session has been added, which will be held at UN Headquarters in New York from 29 May to 2 June.

Click to read more ...

Co-chairs for the High Level Panel on post-Millennium Development Goals announced

It has been announced that the UN Secretary-Genera, Ban Ki-moon, has asked David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, President Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia and President Yudhoyono of Indonesia to co-chair the High Level Panel on post-Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). They will lead the process to start identifying a new international framework for development when the current MDGs expire in 2015.

Prime Minister David Cameron, President Johnson-Sirleaf and President Yodhoyono said:

“We are delighted to have been asked by the UN Secretary-General to co-chair the High Level Panel on the post-MDG framework on development. The Millennium Development Goals have shaped the world's approach to international development for a generation, helping to put millions of children into school and save countless lives. We still have some way to go, but we also want to build on what has been achieved so far. In the years since the MDGs were agreed, we have made significant progress and learned many lessons on how to reduce poverty. We now know more about the critical role that economic growth, trade, tackling corruption, effective government and open societies play in creating wealth and unlocking the potential of the poorest countries. We look forward to working together to ensure the full realization of the MDGs, and to listening to many more voices to set out an ambitious, new agenda for ending poverty in the years beyond 2015".

Source: DFID

The Kuala Lumpur Call to Action…

The Kuala Lumpur Call to Action, the Asian and the Pacific NGOs  Call for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for Sustainable Development was adopted at the Regional Meeting by 121 cross-general activists, advocates and representatives of NGOs from diverse social movements from 27 countries in Asia and the Pacific.

Click to read more ...

Putting it all together...

Putting it all together...While ICPD Beyond 2014, as defined in GA Resolution 65/234, is centrally important for the future implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action, it cannot be viewed in isolation as several other initiatives are taking place in the period leading up to 2015 that may also have an important impact.

Click to read more ...

Parliamentarians at the NGO Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting in Kuala Lumpur

Dame Carol Kidu. Source: devpolicy.orgParliamentarians from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines, with support from the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development, are participating in the Beyond ICPD and the MDGs: NGOs Strategizing for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the Asia-Pacific Region meeting organized by the Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW) in collaboration with UNFPA being held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Hon Dame Carol Anne Kidu, MP from Papua New Guinea, will make the closing address.

Live Twitter updates from 'Beyond ICPD & the MDGs: NGOs Strategizing for Sexual and Reproductive Rights of women and young people in the Asia-Pacific' meeting

The 'Beyond ICPD & the MDGs: NGOs Strategizing for Sexual and Reproductive Rights of women and young people in the Asia-Pacific' regional meeting is now taking place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and is being tweeted live by ARROW. http://twitter.com/#!/WGNRR

We look forward to posting the outcome document and results of the meeting in due course.