IPPF urges governments to deliver on the ICPD’s Programme of Action

“Thirty years ago, the world looked more promising – Nelson Mandela was to be elected President of South Africa. The internet was created. Israel signed an accord with Palestinians. Although, still, there was war in Europe, climate change was wreaking havoc, women and girls were experiencing violence, dying from preventable maternal mortality, and being denied full autonomy.  

Today, despite progress and additional international commitments, the data from SDG indicators shows that globally only 56% of women can make decisions about their sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights; one in five are married before the age of 18,2 and 1 in 3 experience sexual or GVB in their lifetime, mostly from an intimate partner; more than one billion have unmet needs for family planning; half of all pregnancies, 121 million/ year, are unintended.  

Reductions in maternal mortality have worsened since 2016. Multiple ongoing crises including climate change, exacerbated the impact of deprioritized, insufficient SRH services, particularly in conflict situations.  

Although decision-makers know what needs to be done – there is an abundance of evidence before us – both policy implementation and adequate resourcing of the ICPD PoA is falling short of the goals set in 1994.  

At this critical moment for the UN system, we see strong attacks against the 2030 Agenda and the long-held consensus that reproductive rights are human rights and a matter of development. Those trying to undermine these rights are aligned with those trying to undermine democracy, science, civic space and the multilateral system itself. The global community must stop them to continue using human rights as a weapon, instead of a shield, institutionalizing discrimination and hatred into laws and communities, and slowing global progress in areas like maternal mortality and HIV, where we see an increase for adolescent girls.  

The ICPD PoA is essential to any Post-2030 future, but it requires adequate financing and system-wide policy coherence and coordination amongst all stakeholders at national and international levels: the ODA commitments must be fulfilled; the elimination of systemic barriers and the promotion of integrated rights must guide the economic policies, mainstreaming gender and race equality and environmental integrity.  

And young people, feminists, adolescents, and civil society must be guaranteed space to be heard at national, as well at the UN levels; the populations who have been pushed furthest behind must be prioritized.  

We welcome that Member States reaffirmed at the UN their support for the ICPD 30 years on. But we also call on you to increase the speed to make this agenda a reality: you can do better to protect the rights of women, girls, adolescents, and young people in all our diversity. It is our lives, our bodies that pay the price of inaction, or not enough action, and we have paid it for long enough.” 

IPPF ACRO is deeply committed to the realisation of the ICPD’s Programme of Action and will continue to meaningfully engage in spaces like the Commission on Population and Development to drive governments and stakeholder to factually deliver on guaranteeing human rights for all.