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UNFPA GLOBAL POPULATION POLICY UPDATE
Issue 10 - October 20 2003
This issue of UNFPA's Global Population Policy Update focuses on the population
and development-related activities of two regional parliamentary groups and
Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) in the first half of 2003.
Parliamentarians are indispensable in promoting the International Conference
on Population and Development's (ICPD) Programme of Action around the world.
Regional and global parliamentary groups on population and development provide
opportunities for parliamentarians to meet and discuss the challenges and
goals of creating an enabling environment and mobilizing resources for ICPD
implementation.
On 26 March 2003, IAPG organized a public hearing for parliamentarians and
journalists entitled Myths and Realities of Emergency Contraception.
The hearing was conducted to sensitize parliamentarians, journalists and
the general public to the importance of emergency contraception (EC) in Peru,
a country where the public does not have sufficient access to and information
on EC even though there is an emergency contraceptive on the market.
The hearing, which included parliamentarians and NGO representatives from
Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, was held in the Peruvian Congress in Lima.
On 27 March, it was followed by a workshop about EC for obstetricians and
gynecologists. Both the hearing and the workshop were widely attended
and, as a result, parliamentarians, journalists, physicians, midwives and
the general public received updated, complete and accurate information from
prominent experts on the usage, effectiveness and safety of EC.
In May 2003, IAPG conducted a two-part parliamentary study tour that covered
Colombia and Brazil. The study tour enabled participants to gain first-hand
experience on the two countries' sexual and reproductive health programmes.
The delegation included parliamentarians from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia,
Ireland, the Netherlands and Peru, as well as representatives from UNFPA
and the local family planning associations, BEMFAM in Brazil and Profamilia
in Colombia. The study tour, which emphasized the implementation of
the ICPD Programme of Action, helped to facilitate an exchange of perspectives
among parliamentarians so that they could learn how support for sexual and
reproductive health programmes can affect the quality of life of men, women
and young people. During the visit, IAPG and Parlatino — a Latin American
regional parliamentary body with 22 member countries — signed a cooperation
agreement to continue working not only with Parlatino's Commission on Equity
and Gender but with other Parlatino commissions acting on related issues
as well.
On 12 June 2003, IAPG organized a parliamentarian meeting on emergency contraception
in Montevideo, Uruguay. The meeting's objective was to sensitize parliamentarians
to the importance of EC. Participants included parliamentarians from
Uruguay and Argentina, as well as local NGO representatives. The debate
highlighted the need for parliamentarians to work at all levels, in partnerships
with government ministries and civil society. This meeting laid the
groundwork for the creation of a national all-party group of parliamentarians
in Uruguay on population and development.
See http://www.iapg.org (website
to be launched in November 2003)
On 10 March 2003, the fourth meeting of the Parliamentary Network of the
World Bank (PNoWB) was held in Athens, Greece. 140 parliamentarians
from 65 countries attended the meeting. Along with representatives
from AFPPD and IAPG, IEPFPD co-hosted a session of the meeting on population
and development, which was attended by more than 30 parliamentarians.
At the Athens meeting, participants endorsed the Parliamentarians Implementation
Watch, a parliamentary initiative to promote and monitor countries' work
towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs,
which were adopted by 189 countries at the U.N. Millennium Summit in September
2000, include halving poverty, overcoming hunger and environmental degradation
and spurring significant improvements in gender equality, health care and
education by 2015. Network members held a meeting of their HIV/AIDS
committee to highlight the World Bank's role in the prevention, treatment
and care of HIV/AIDS, mobilize parliamentarians through advocacy and discussion
and inform key partners and political leaders across the globe of the need
to take urgent action.
On 26 and 27 May 2003, IEPFPD's third council meeting took place in Lisbon,
Portugal. The meeting was held in the Portuguese Senate at the invitation
of the Portuguese Parliamentary Group on Population and Development, the
Portuguese family planning association and João Bosco da Mota Amaral,
President of the Portuguese Parliament. Members of twenty European
parliaments attended, along with representatives from the regional parliamentary
networks in Asia (AFPPD), Africa and the Arab World (FAAPPD) and the Americas
(IAPG). UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid and IPPF Director-General
Steve Sinding delivered the keynote speeches, calling for European parliamentarians
to take steps to ensure universal access to reproductive health. Attendees
focused on resource mobilization, creating an enabling environment and overcoming
barriers and obstacles to implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action.
Meeting attendees adopted a declaration in which they:
- Reaffirmed the ICPD Programme of Action as the basis for progress
in ensuring sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for all people;
- Acknowledged that they would strive to maintain the Programme of
Action;
- Reaffirmed their determination to overcome the many remaining obstacles
to full implementation of the Programme of Action;
- Acknowledged the importance of resource mobilization and pledged
to strongly urge an increase in funding for family planning and SRHR from
their governments;
- Committed to progress towards the creation of an enabling environment
at the national, European and international levels through the exchange of
experiences and best practices; and
- Pledged to take up SRHR, population and development proactively in
their work in parliament.
See http://www.europarlyvoices.org
On 10 May 2003, PGA collaborated with Plan International and Programme National
de Lutte Contre l'Excision (PNLE) to organize a workshop on female genital
cutting in Bamako, Mali. The workshop took place at the National Assembly
in Bamako, which is notable because the issue of female genital cutting could
not be discussed in the National Assembly as recently as three years ago.
This workshop was very well received by the Malian parliamentarians and successfully
sensitized them to the issue of female genital cutting.
On 26 May 2003, PGA gave a presentation at the Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS) Conference of Chairmen in Abuja, Nigeria. Kenneth
Dzirasah, Second Deputy Speaker of Ghana and PGA President, and Ulrika Broback,
PGA's Junior Project Officer in Mali, spoke at the conference about the scope
of PGA's work. The presentation formally introduced PGA to the ECOWAS
Parliament. On 13 June, the Parliament and PGA signed a Memorandum
of Understanding ensuring that both organizations would "work collaboratively
on issues of political integration and sustainable development in West Africa."
The two organizations agreed to collaborate in planning activities and identifying
relevant parliamentarians to participate in dialogues on development.
PGA and the ECOWAS Parliament will also organize seminars on human trafficking,
migration, population, health and sustainable development in the region.
On 23 and 24 June 2003, PGA co-organized a parliamentary meeting on HIV/AIDS
with the Policy Project and Pathfinder Nigeria. The meeting was held
at the National Assembly in Bamako, Mali. Since 62 per cent of the
Malian deputies had been elected to parliament for the first time, the workshop
was conducted to inform Malian parliamentarians about the problems associated
with HIV/AIDS. The parliamentarians learned about the AIDS Impact Model
and the Modele RAPID (Ressources pour Analyse de la Population et de son
Impact sur le Developpement) — two methods that allow governments and businesses
to analyze the effects of HIV/AIDS on national development.
See http://www.pgaction.org
This newsletter is issued by the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA) in its capacity as secretariat for the biannual International
Parliamentarians' Conference on the Implementation of the ICPD Programme
of Action (the first conference was held in November 2002, in Ottawa, Canada).
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 fellow
parliamentarians in other countries and regions in their efforts 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 Diego Hadis at hadis@unfpa.org. If you have any questions or
comments on the content of this newsletter, please contact Harumi Kodama
at kodama@unfpa.org or Stirling Scruggs at
scruggs@unfpa.org.
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