Besides that, representing the Women’s Major Group at the Science, Technology and Innovation Forum at the HLPF, Gestos urged governments to implement people-centred sustainable development initiatives: “From evidence in access to medicines and vaccines, as well as food security and technologies for just climate-change transition, it is urgent to recalibrate the balance of human rights and public good against private rights – and it requires rewriting the rules on intellectual property protection at the global and national levels.”
Rewriting the rules is not only a call related to intellectual property process, though. For us it means changing the economic and programmatic rules that block governments to deliver efficient policies to achieve the SDGs. In access to services, for example, IPPF has more than 35,000 delivery points worldwide, but it is very concerning than in 70% of the countries we work in, IPPF is the main provider for sexual and reproductive health services. “This indicates that governments are not doing their homework in reaching out to those who need the most,” explained Alessandra Nilo, External Relations Director in IPPF ACRO, in her speech at the “Advancing Women's Sexual and Reproductive Agency” with UNFPA and governments from Colombia, Sierra Leone, Nepal, Georgia, Spain, as well as Tulane University, USAID, and the Guttmacher Institute.
Even in countries with good reproductive health laws and monitoring systems- or countries that have made progress regarding abortion, like Colombia and Mexico- “IPPF continues to face challenges in implementation and effectiveness of those legal frameworks, due to scarcity of resources allocated to SRHR, and narratives disseminating fear, stigma, and confusion,” she continued.