UN Population confab opens in New York
The 47th session of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD) has opened at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York, with a call for the inclusion of population issues in post-2015 global development to improve people’s lives.
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This year's session will focus on the progress made and challenges faced since the landmark International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) was held in Cairo in 1994.
During the week-long session, the UN Commission on Population and Development will examine actions taken by governments to improve people's lives and address population issues.
Presentations by experts will include new demographic trends in global population, including ageing, youth, life expectancy, mortality, urbanisation and migration.
UN Secretary-General’s address
In an opening statement delivered on his behalf by the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Jan Eliasson, the UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-moon, said with the ICPD programme of action, governments set out an ambitious agenda to deliver inclusive, equitable, and sustainable development.
"Over the past two decades, this agenda has contributed to significant advances.
"Fewer people are living in extreme poverty; gender equality and the empowerment of women are gaining ground worldwide; More people are living longer, healthier lives; More girls are in school. Fewer women are dying in pregnancy and childbirth; There are more laws to protect and uphold human rights,” he said.
Yet, in the midst of this human progress, Mr Ban said, the continued exclusion of some groups and the potential for serious environmental damage put these gains at risk.
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He said the international community had an urgent responsibility to invest in creating opportunities and a supportive environment for innovation and entrepreneurship for persons of all ages, "in particular for young people.”
The UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Wu Hongbo, said people were at the heart of sustainable development and so population issues should be addressed urgently, as few factors would shape the global development agenda.
He said the September General Assembly would renew the political support and high-level commitment to the goals of the ICPD and define the work in the field of population and development for the years to come.
The President of the UN General Assembly, John Ashe, said persistent gaps and barriers had continued to delay the objectives of achieving dignity and well-being for all.
UNFPA Executive Director
Addressing the session, the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Dr Babatunde Osotimehin, said, “The ICPD Programme of Action changed forever how we perceive population and development. It moved population policies and programmes from a focus on numbers to a focus on individuals – women and men, girls and boys. And, in so doing, it ensured that our collective goals included all people, particularly the most marginalised and vulnerable women and girls.”
At the CPD, he said member states would follow through on the decision they took three years ago to “extend the Programme of Action and the key actions for its further implementation beyond 2014 and ensure its follow-up in order to fully meet its goals and objectives.”
Ensuring equality
“We have seen important aggregate gains in access to sexual and reproductive health services, including family planning, with significant overall impacts on the health of women, girls and children.
“Yet, in many countries, these gains have gone only to those at the top of the income spectrum. The poor, in both rural and poor urban areas, continue to suffer from lack of access to services and from sexual and reproductive ill health.
“Today more than 200 million women who want family planning cannot get it,” Dr Osotimehin said.
He stressed that the ICPD Programme of Action reaffirmed that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, without distinction of any kind.”
Reproductive health rights
He said if women were to contribute to the enrichment and growth of society, then they must have the opportunity to decide on the number and timing of their children and do so free from violence or coercion, with full confidence that pregnancy and childbirth would not result in illness, disability or death; and with confidence that their children would be healthy and survive.
He said to achieve that required urgent renewed investments in strengthening health systems and bringing those critical services to people where they lived, Dr Osotimehin said.
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In addition, he called for investment in young people who, he emphasised, were key to sustainability, explaining that how the needs of young people were met now would greatly determine how societies adapt as they aged.
Dr Osotimehin said, “the CPD affords member states the opportunity to ensure that the gains of the ICPD are carried forward in the Sustainable Development Goals”.