[afro-nets] World Summit: Universal Access to ReproHealth by 2015

[Johanne Sundby <johanne.sundby@medisin.uio.no>]

World Summit Commits to Universal Access to Reproductive Health
by 2015
---------------------------------------------------------------

Largest-Ever Gathering of Leaders Resolves to End Gender Dis-
crimination; Declares "Progress for Women is Progress for All"

UNITED NATIONS, New York, 19 September - World leaders resolved
to achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015, pro-
mote gender equality and end discrimination against women, as
they ended their three-day 2005 World Summit on Friday night.

They made those commitments by adopting the Summit Outcome rec-
ommended by the General Assembly. By the terms of their agree-
ment, the leaders would integrate the goal of access to repro-
ductive health into national strategies to attain the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) to end poverty, reduce maternal death,
promote gender equality and combat HIV/AIDS.

"Five years after the Millennium Declaration, the world has re-
affirmed the need to keep gender equality, HIV/AIDS and repro-
ductive health at the top of its agenda," said Thoraya Ahmed
Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Popula-
tion Fund. "This outcome is a success for millions of women, men
and young people all over the world, whose appeals have been
heard. We must now focus our energy on fulfilling the commit-
ments made by world leaders."

"The leaders' resolve to bring reproductive health to all has
confirmed the vision of the agenda adopted at the 1994 Cairo In-
ternational Conference on Population and Development," said Ms.
Obaid. "UNFPA looks forward to working with governments to ex-
pand access to comprehensive reproductive health services such
as family planning, skilled attendance at birth, emergency ob-
stetric care and the prevention and treatment of sexually trans-
mitted infections, including HIV/AIDS."

"We must act now on the commitments and empower the largest-ever
generation of young people knocking on adulthood's door," said
Ms. Obaid. "We cannot fail and consign them to lives of misery,
ill health and unfulfilled dreams. The cost is too terrifying to
contemplate."

Turning to women's rights, the world's leaders agreed to promote
gender equality and eliminate pervasive gender discrimination
with several measures. They would include:

Eliminating gender inequalities in schools; Guaranteeing the
free and equal right of women to own and inherit property; En-
suring equal access to reproductive health; Promoting women's
equal access to work; Eliminating all forms of discrimination
and violence against women and girls; and Promoting increased
women's representation in government decision-making bodies. The
largest-ever gathering of world leaders reaffirmed that the full
implementation of the goals and objectives of the Declaration
and Platform for Action of the 1995 Beijing Women's Conference
is an essential contribution to achieving world development
goals. They declared: "We remain convinced that progress for
women is progress for all."

Recognizing that HIV/AIDS, malaria and other infectious diseases
hampered development and threatened the world, the leaders
pledged to increase investments to improve health systems in
poor countries. The aim was to provide sufficient supplies,
health workers and facilities.

The leaders committed to measures to increase the capacities of
adults and adolescents to protect themselves from HIV infection,
according to the Summit Outcome. They would also provide
stronger leadership; scale up a comprehensive response to
achieve multisectoral coverage for prevention, care, treatment
and support for those threatened by HIV/AIDS; and mobilize more
resources to fully implement the commitments in the 2001 Decla-
ration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS. Substantial funding, they
pledged, would be given to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS and to
the anti-HIV/AIDS work of United Nations bodies, according to
the agreement.

In actions that recall "Quick Wins" proposed in January 2005 by
the development experts of the Millennium Project, the world
leaders resolved to urgently carry out initiatives that would
improve people's lives immediately. They would act to distribute
mosquito nets and eliminate fees for primary schools and, where
appropriate, health care services. Expanding access to reproduc-
tive health and ending shortages in commodities were among the
Millennium Project's proposed "Quick Wins" - priority actions
that could bring breathtaking results within three or fewer
years.

All previous issues of the UNFPA Global Population Policy Update
can now be found on UNFPA's website at:
http://www.unfpa.org/parliamentarians/news/newsletters.htm

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This newsletter is issued by the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA) in its capacity as secretariat for the biennual Interna-
tional Parliamentarians' Conference on the Implementation of the
ICPD Programme of Action (IPCI/ICPD). The first IPCI/ICPD was
held in November 2002 in Ottawa, Canada and the second in Octo-
ber 2004 in Strasbourg, France. These dispatches are intended to
highlight important developments taking place around the world
so that parliamentarians can be kept informed of and learn from
the successes, setbacks and challenges encountered by their fel-
low parliamentarians in other countries and regions in their ef-
forts to promote the implementation of the Programme of Action
of the International Conference on Population and Development
(September 1994, Cairo, Egypt). It should be noted that UNFPA
does not necessarily endorse all of the policies described in
this newsletter.

Please send mailing list update information to Ragaa Said at
mailto:said@unfpa.org  If you have any questions or comments on
the content of this newsletter, please contact Harumi Kodama at
mailto:kodama@unfpa.org or Safiye Cagar at mailto:cagar@unfpa.org


--
Johanne Sundby
mailto:johanne.sundby@medisin.uio.no