Project RMA Participates in ECLAC ICPD+15 Review Seminar
October 15, 2009 at 5:05 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: ECLAC, ICPD+15, Latin America and the Caribbean, Universal Access
About 15 participants of the RH supplies advocacy workshop conducted by Project RMA, at the beginning of last week attended the ECLAC ICPD+15 review meeting that took place on October 7th – 8th 2009 at the ECLAC in Santiago. At many instances, they seized the opportunity to comment on presentations and raise questions.
Moreover, one of the facilitators (Nirvana González Rosa from the LAC Women’s Health Network) was asked to give a recommendation in the conlusions session “Cairo+15 and beyond” on what should guide the next steps to achieve the ICPD goals. Her recommendations, and the repeated emphasis on the importance of universal access to RH by other RH supplies workshop participants, especially in the unequal region of Latin America and the Caribbean, lead to the inclusion of a paragraph on universal access to supplies in the outcome document.
RH Supplies Advocacy Workshop in Santiago de Chile
October 15, 2009 at 4:41 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: capacity building, ICPD, ICPD+15, LAC, Latin America and the Caribbean, supplies, workshop
On October 5th-6th 2009, prior to the ECLAC Latin American regional review of the ICPD+15 in Santiago de Chile, represantatives of 25 women’s rights and SRHR organisations from 15 countries in the region, gathered to improve their skills in RH supplies advocacy and to work on a joint advocacy strategy. The workshop for this group of experienced advocates focused on knowledge-building on RH supplies and the impact of universally accessible supplies on achieving international development goals, such as the ICPD goals. Moreover, it offered participants the opportunity, to attend the regional ICPD review meeting and speak out on the identified issues.
The first part of the workshop mainly concentrated on clarifying concepts and definitions and introducing PRMA’s work on RH supplies. IPPF and MEXFAM presented activities in Mexico and Nicaragua and DSW presented the key findings of its regional mapping. Based on these facts and figures, the group started to discuss RH supplies issues in the region that need to be addressed. In working groups participants identified actions that need to be taken in order to create a supportive environment for supplies in the region. The action plan resulting from this work includes conducting a mapping of organisations and donors interested in funding work on supplies in the region. Subsequently, resources, such as the RH supplies advocacy toolkit and the RHInterchange, and opportunities, such as RHSC membership and international development goals review meetings, to address these issues were presented and discussed.
As a short-term opportunity, the ECLAC ICPD+15 review meeting was identified and the need to include “universal access to RH services and supplies” expressed. Facilitators gave an overview on the ICPD+15 process so far, including the CPD, the Panama regional NGO meeting, and the global NGO forum in Berlin. Following that summary and discussing language used in the conferences’ outcome documents, a joint approach on how to speak out on the issues was prepared.
Global NGO Forum Demands Concrete Action On Cairo Commitments
September 7, 2009 at 2:01 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Berlin, Global Partners in Action, ICPD, ICPD+15, MDGs
BERLIN, September 4 — Activists for women’s health and rights today demanded “concrete, practical and fully‐funded actions” by governments to fulfill their 15 years of promises about investing in equality, human rights and social and economic development, especially for women and girls.
In a five‐point Berlin Call to Action ending the Global Partners in Action forum here, more than 400 delegates from 131 countries urged the international community to meet the 2015 deadline for achieving the Programme of Action of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).
“As urgent as the ICPD agenda was in 1994, it is even more so today,” said the declaration, which the non‐governmental organization (NGO) delegates hammered out in a late‐night session after three days of talks. “We demand that all governments fulfill the commitments made to their own people and the international community at Cairo in 1994.”
The ICPD created “a visionary global consensus” among 179 governments that overturned existing demographics‐based approaches to achieving sustainable development, reducing poverty and slowing population growth in favor of policies based on meeting the needs of individuals for human rightsand sexual and reproductive health care. Reaffirmed in many United Nations and international meetings ever since, including the 2000 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Cairo Consensus pledged investments that in too many cases have not been made.
“With five years left,” the Berlin Call to Action said, “we call on local, national and international decision‐makers to join with non‐governmental organizations to establish and implement concrete, practical and fully‐funded actions for ensuring sexual and reproductive health and rights.”
The NGOs pledged cooperation with policymakers and urged immediate national, government and international action to:
- Guarantee that sexual and reproductive rights, as human rights, are fully recognized and fulfilled, through legal reforms and new family policies;
- Invest in comprehensive sexual and reproductive health information, supplies and services as a priority in health systems strengthening, by increasing access for all (especially in emergency settings) to family planning and skilled maternal and newborn health care, and to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment services, and by addressing unsafe abortion as a public health and human rights issue
- Ensure the sexual and reproductive rights of adolescents and young people, by removing barriers to their access to information and services and empowering them to make policies and informed decisions aout their own lives;
- Create and implement formal mechanisms for meaningful civil society participation in programs, policy and budget decisions, monitoring and evaluation, by protecting advocates as human rights defenders, involving young people, marginalized groups and NGOs in policy dialogue and guaranteeing them autonomy; and
- Ensure that donor contributions and national budgets and policies meet the needs of all people for sexual and reproductive healh and rights, especially during times of economic stress.
The NGOs also asked decision‐makers to adopt principles of equity and equality, inclusiveness and transparency, accountability and sustainability, and processes free from fundamentalist doctrines that restrict human rights.
“Human beings cannot live in dignity without the full implementation of the ICPD Program of Action,” the statement said. “It is a matter of human rights, democracy and equality for all.”
Theme of the Global Partners in Action: NGO Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Development was “Invest in Health, Rights and the Future.” It was co‐hosted by the Government of Germany’s Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and UNFPA, the UN Population Fund, with additional support from the MacArthur Foundation.
For additional information and the full text of the Berlin Call to Action, visit the Global NGO Forum website
Registration open for EuroNGOs Conference and AGM
June 15, 2009 at 10:03 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: EuroNGOs, ICPD+15, Papardes Zieds, Riga
Registration for this year’s EuroNGOs conference and Annual General Meeting (AGM) has been openend. The conference with the title ‘Investing in Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Times of Economic Crisis’ conference will take place September 7th 2009 in Riga, Latvia, and will be followed by EuroNGOs AGM on September 8th 2009.
The conference is hosted by Papardes Zieds – Latvia’s Association for Family Planning and Sexual Health.
EuroNGOs invites member and partner organisations from the EU member states, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as representatives from partner organizations from the “Global South”, representatives from private foundations, UNFPA, WHO, the European Commission, the Baltic Parliaments and Baltic development cooperation agencies to lively discussions and workshops aimed at enhancing understanding of the current and possible future impact of the global economic crisis on SRHR and SRHR funding streams.
Looking ahead and beyond the “final” landmark dates of both ICPD at 15 and the MDGs in 2015, the EuroNGOs platform will use the outcomes of the “Global Partners in Action: NGO Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Development”, that takes place September 2nd to 4th in Berlin, Germany, as a ground of discussion to develop an action plan for the years ahead.
For more information, a preliminary program and to register to the conference and AGM, please visit the EuroNGOs website.
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