| 31
March - 03 April, 2009
Commission
on Population and Development
New York, USA —
The
United Nations Commission on Population
and Development (CPD), which met at
the UN headquarters from 31 March
to 3 April 2009, adopted a series
of proposals for national and international
action over the next five years to
achieve the goals and objectives set
forth by the 1994 International Conference
on Population and Development held
in Cairo.
Recognizing
reproductive health as a human right,
and recalling that in Cairo countries
had committed to achieving universal
access by 2015, the Commission urged
Governments and development partners
to improve maternal health, reduce
maternal and infant mortality, and
prevent and respond to the HIV/AIDS
epidemic by strengthening health systems
and ensuring that everyone, particularly
those in vulnerable situations, had
access to a wide range of health-care
services. That included family planning,
prenatal and post-natal care, safe
delivery, treatment for fertility
and sexually transmitted diseases,
sex education and quality services
to manage complications arising from
abortion. In countries where abortion
was legal, health systems should train
and equip service providers to ensure
safe access, but not promote it as
a method of family planning.
The
Commission encouraged Governments
to provide financial and technical
support to prevent deaths and complications
related to pregnancy and childbirth
-? still the leading cause of death
among women in their child-bearing
years in many developing countries.
Reducing maternal mortality not only
saved women's lives, it protected
family health, alleviated poverty
and improved prospects for future
generations.
The
Commission called on the international
community to help Governments increase
funding to reduce the unmet need for
family planning, which was far below
suggested targets, and ensure that
it was included in national budgets.
It also called upon Governments to
make it a priority in national development
plans and budgets to address the impact
of population dynamics on poverty
and sustainable development, keeping
in mind that universal health-care
services and supplies, education and
national capacity-building for population
and development, as well as technology
transfer to developing countries,
were essential for achieving the Cairo
Programme of Action, the Beijing Platform
of Action and the Millennium Development
Goals.
Governments
were also urged to strengthen technical
assistance and training to help develop
human resources for health, taking
into account the challenges of developing
countries in retaining skilled health
personnel, according to the text.
In addition, they were urged significantly
to scale up efforts to provide comprehensive
HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care
and support programmes for all by
2010, and halt and reverse the epidemic
by 2015. They were called upon to
strengthen initiatives to enable women
and girls to protect themselves from
the risk of HIV infection.
The
Commission also urged Governments
to eliminate all forms of discrimination
and violence against women and girls,
including such harmful traditional
practices as female genital mutilation,
and to work more effectively to achieve
gender equality in all areas of family
responsibility and reproductive life,
as well as politics and decision-making.
The Commission also urged States to
enact and strictly enforce laws that
set a minimum legal age for marriage
and required the full consent of both
spouses before a marriage contract
could be issued.
The
Partners in Population and Development
(PPD) was represented at the session
by Jyoti Shankar Singh, PPD's Permanent
Observer to the United Nations.
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