Countdown 2015 Global Roundtable Declares Vision, Sets Action Agenda

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Claire Hoffman (44) 207-487-7906 Micheline Kennedy (202) 326-8710

Click here to read the Sept 2 statement by Steven Sinding, IPPF

Click here to read the summary of the Countdown2015 Action Agenda

Click here for the press kit

LONDON, 2 September – Members of the sexual and reproductive rights community today called on all who share the vision of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) to join now in making it a reality, through renewed commitment and increased investment.

Issuing a final declaration and an eight-page Action Agenda after a three-day meeting here, the 700 leaders, activists and parliamentarians from 109 countries affirmed that “sexual and reproductive rights are human rights—universal, interdependent and indivisible.” They recommended new approaches to achieve the ICPD Programme of Action by its 2015 deadline, including efforts to “challenge those who distort religious teachings.”

The participants called for work worldwide first to increase the availability of family planning and then to “make safe legal abortion accessible and available to every woman who chooses it, free from the threat of violence or coercion.” Celebrating the contributions of more than 100 young people at the gathering, they said comprehensive sexuality education for all ages should embrace sexual diversity and include discussion of pleasure and freedom.

As Girls’ Initiative co-founder Bene Madunaga told the raucous closing plenary, “Let’s face it—we’re sexual beings, right?”

The gathering was sponsored by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Family Care International and Population Action International when it became apparent that the United Nations was not prepared to mount its own conference to observe and evaluate the decade since Cairo. The final declaration envisioned a world “where all who need them have access to health, education and social services, and where spending on books replaces spending on missiles and warplanes.”

One of the main conference themes was the convergence of ICPD goals with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for 2015 that world leaders agreed upon in 2000. The MDGs “are dead letters unless we achieve the goals of Cairo,” IPPF Director-General Steven W. Sinding told an earlier media briefing.

“The countdown to 2015 goes on,” said Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA, the UN Population Fund. “We know what must be done to get there. Let us build and deepen our partnership, maintain our commitment and make it happen.”

LONDON, 2 September – The U.S. election poses high stakes for women around the world because of the “extremist agenda” of the Bush White House and the “dangerous, irresponsible platform” of the Republican Party, Steven W. Sinding, Director General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), said today.

Speaking to U.S. media attending the Global Roundtable for Countdown 2015 here, Sinding noted that the Republican Party platform, to be adopted at its national convention in New York today, will call for making abortion a crime, “threatening women’s lives and women’s right to self-determination.”

Timothy E. Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation, agreed. “In a reversal of its historic role, my own country has emerged as one of the most significant obstacles to progress,” he said. “On issue after issue, the current administration has placed ideology above evidence and bias above science.”

“At the International AIDS conference in Bangkok, we urged the administration to reconsider its “ABC” approach which for youth begins with A and ends with A for abstinence, said Marcela Howell, Director, Advocates for Youth. “Whether at home or abroad, promoting a simplistic one size fits all “abstinence-only until marriage” policy is at best naïve, and at worst dangerous.”

“The stakes in November are very high indeed,” Sinding said. As evidence, he cited the Bush administration’s global gag rule that bars family planning groups receiving U.S. assistance from discussing abortion; its promotion of abstinence-only as the best way to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS; and its de-funding of IPPF and UNFPA, the UN Population Fund.

LONDON, 2 September 2004 – The conservatism of some of the new European Union member states will not change Europe’s commitment to the sexual and reproductive health goals of the International Consensus on Population and Development (ICPD), the EU’s Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid said today.

At a press conference marking the closing day of the Global Roundtable for Countdown 2015, Poul Nielson distinguished between the EU’s collective approach to international aid since the ICPD met in Cairo in 1994, and the domestic policies of the ten new EU member countries. “Cairo has the clear backing of the European Union member states,” he said. All countries have their own domestic policies, he added.

Hilary Benn, Great Britain’s Secretary of State for International Development, underscored that point, noting that European countries now average international family planning contributions equal to 0.42 percent of their gross national income every year, compared to the U.S. level of 0.12 percent. It is rising steadily and Europe hopes to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of 0.70 percent of GNI by 2015, he said.

Steven W. Sinding, Director-General of the International Planned Parenthood Foundation (IPPF), which co-sponsored the three-day Roundtable, said the gathering had agreed that the MDGs “are dead letters unless we achieve the goals of Cairo.” The ICPD, he said, “is the only yeast that can make the ICPD bread rise.”

Sinding said the 700 participants from 109 countries had also reached consensus on two other points. “It is essential that we unite the sexual and reproductive health movement with the movement fighting HIV/AIDS,” he said. Second, the 700 participants from 109 countries agreed “to reinforce a global movement to ensure that every woman in every country has access to safe abortion services when she needs them.” This does go beyond the ICPD goals but reflects the views of conference participants, he said.

LONDON, 1 September, 2004 -- People living with HIV/AIDS are often caught between conflicting demands when they try to help prevent the spread of the disease, and their own needs and goals are often ignored, the Global Roundtable here was told today.

“How do you go ask for condoms if you’re not supposed to be sexually active?” asked Promise Mthenbu of the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS. She told the 700 Roundtable participants from 109 countries that “Disclosure is a double-edged sword,” because while it can bring help it may also bring ostracism and stigma.

RESOURCES:

Click here for the conference schedule Click here for personal stories around the world Click here for speaker biographies Click here for a calendar of events

The second day of the three-day gathering focused on progress since the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994 on dealing with the AIDS pandemic, and on the global cultural revolution that is changing values, sexual behavior and politics worldwide.

“Doctors tell people like me to get sterilized or have an abortion if we get pregnant,” said Violeta Ross, a Bolivian woman who was raped at 18 and is HIV-positive. “Having HIV does not take away my right to be a mother.”

Panelists agreed. “I don’t think we are doing enough for the needs and goals of HIV-infected people,” said Nafis Sadik, Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General and his special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific. She said programs to prevent HIV/AIDS must become part of sexual and reproductive health services, and vice versa, if either objective is to succeed.

In an afternoon session, U.S. ethics professor Farid Esack said culture is often used as an excuse to violate human rights, but could only be influenced from within. Audience participants noted that instead of blaming cultures, activists should criticize the political powers that influence and shape cultures. Some of the conference’s 100 young people said this was one of their major goals.

“In the age of a globalized flood of information about sexuality, young people live in a different reality from their parents. Youth leaders can be the bridge between the new and old cultures,” said Odette Salden, a conference youth delegate from Choice for Youth and Sexuality in the Netherlands.

In a morning briefing, Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, said religious fundamentalism was “one of the greatest threats and challenges” to ICPD goals. Rana Abu Ghazaleh, a Youth Coalition member from Jerusalem, told participants in a working group that fundamentalism is not the same as religion. She quoted the prophet Mohammed: “Raise your children differently from how you were raised, because they were born to a different time from your time.”

LONDON, 31 August – Reproductive health advocates from 109 countries today rallied here today to re-energize and chart a way around obstacles that have blocked greater progress over the past decade.

Opening a three-day Global Roundtable called Countdown 2015: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All, more than 700 activists, parliamentarians and leaders – including more than 100 young people – began with a stark assessment of global changes since 1994, when the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) met in Cairo.

“Despite progress in many countries and in many spheres of the ICPD Programme of Action, we must admit to considerable disappointment at what’s happened since,” said Steven W. Sinding, Director- General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, one of three non-governmental organizations co-sponsoring the gathering. “Unless we are bold and clever, we risk being left on the sidelines.”

He listed several challenges, including a conservative reaction against the ICPD consensus by the current U.S. government, the Vatican and some Islamic countries; a mistaken perception that the population crisis has ended; and a lack of emphasis in the Millennium Development Goals and among HIV/AIDS activists on the need for expanded reproductive health services.

A “flat-earth mindset” in Washington

Timothy Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation, charged the U.S. government with “a flat-earth mindset” that “has placed ideology above evidence and bias above science…then acted indignant when its own citizens have the temerity to protest.” The antidote, he said in an afternoon speech, is for activists to focus on “the right to protection,” helping people protect themselves against discrimination, violence, ignorance and disease.

Amy Coen, President of conference co-sponsor Population Action International, told a press briefing that a special Global Report Card called Countdown 2015: Where are we Now?, released today, has tried “to measure hope” as well as more standard indicators of the current status of sexual and reproductive health in 133 countries. At the moment, she said, “Policy-makers are not taking this issue seriously enough to do the financial investment necessary to make it a reality.”

Jill Sheffield, founder and president of the third conference co-sponsor, Family Care International, said such investment saves women’s lives but has fallen drastically behind commitments made in Cairo. The result, she said, is “the difference between London and Lagos,” the huge disparity between the reproductive health services available to women in wealthy countries and that in poor countries.

Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA, the UN Population Fund, described her agency’s survey of 169 countries that found nearly all had taken some action to protect the rights of girls and women and that a majority had taken “significant measures to address reproductive health concerns.” However, she added, “much still remains to be done, and in some areas we are slipping backwards.”

Young people are not a problem to be solved or a group to be targeted in the future, but a resource to be brought into decision-making today on the world’s problems, she told a press briefing. “We don’t want to be handed the torch. We want to share the torch,” she said. While citizenship is different in every culture, it has to involve participation in every aspect of public life.

Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice and chair of the Roundtable program committee, said the 700 activists, leaders and parliamentarians from 109 countries at the three-day gathering would first outline the new world that has evolved since the ICPD was created in Cairo in 1994. Then it will evaluate the ways that change in family structures, resources, mass communications and cultures have reshaped decision-makers’ options. Working groups will then seek to set an agenda for the next ten years of action to promote sexual and reproductive health.

Global Roundtable Set to Open Tuesday

August 29, 2004: In September 1994, the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) drew official delegations from 179 countries to Cairo, Egypt. Some 11,000 people attended, including government delegations, U.N. agencies, intergovernmental groups, non-governmental organizations and the media, making it the largest conference on population and development ever held.

Participants negotiated a global Programme of Action that set priorities and time-bound goals to guide national-level policy making for the next 20 years. Specifically, the Programme of Action, sometimes called the “Cairo Consensus,” addresses a broad range of topics on population and development, including sexual and reproductive health, human rights, women’s empowerment, education, the environment, internal and global migration and the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS.

The resulting consensus, agreed to by all 179 countries, signaled a radical change in the approach to population issues. Sexual and reproductive health and rights replaced the narrower, demographically-oriented perspective of fertility control. The international community pledged to make gender equality and human and reproductive rights the foundation of the new agreement and called for universal access to reproductive health services, education and information, and to lower infant, child and maternal mortality rates by the year 2015 (the same year the United Nations has set to reach important targets in its Millennium Development Goals).

Ten years down, ten to go

Countdown 2015, from 31 August through 2 September in London, marks the 10th anniversary of that consensus. It will bring together more than 700 invited representatives of nongovernmental organizations from 109 countries, including the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the largest in the population field, with government officials and leaders of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, to assess global progress towards goals in women’s rights, reproductive health and poverty alleviation.

After ten years of work, it is clear that the ICPD consensus adopted in the Programme of Action has had a profound impact on the world and on national-level policy. Almost every country has taken concrete steps toward implementing the agreement, and governments continue at regional and international meetings to restate their commitment to the ICPD framework.

But much else has happened as we round the halfway point to the deadline.

• HIV/AIDS has reached pandemic proportions. “HIV/AIDS threatens to unravel the achievements of the past 30 years in the worst-affected countries,” according to Poul Nielson, European Union Commissioner for Development. As he told UNFPA in Geneva, over 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, and last year three million people died. Gender disparity in HIV infection rates is also growing, with young women at far higher risk than their male counterparts.
• Young people under 25 are now half the world’s population, sharply raising demands for family planning services at a time when supplies fall short. The ICPD consensus transformed the global conversation about youth, women’s rights and sexuality, but current U.S. policy undermines that consensus. It has also come under attack by ideological extremists at EU and regional U.N. meetings.
• Countdown 2015 will address the need for aggressive next steps to implement the ICPD agreement. Organisers will issue a detailed country-by-country analysis of progress, suggesting the best ways for thousands of advocates and health care providers to expand sexual and reproductive rights and services to the world’s 6.4 billion people.

WHO: The Countdown 2015 initiative is a partnership of civil society organisations dedicated to improving sexual and reproductive health and rights worldwide. Launched by Family Care International (FCI), the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and Population Action International (PAI), the initiative works to reinvigorate commitments to the 20-year goals of the 1994 ICPD and to measure global progress toward those goals. Countdown 2015 seeks to set clear priorities, recruit new allies and focus on the critical role of young people in order to bring real change to people’s lives.

Confirmed speakers include: Confirmed speakers include: Thoraya Obaid, UNFPA Executive Director; Mary Robinson (former President of Ireland and Chair of the United Nations Human Rights Commission), who now heads the Ethical Globalization Initiative; UN Foundation President Timothy Wirth; Commissioner Poul Nielsen of the European Union’s Commission for Development and Humanitarian Aid; Hillary Benn, Great Britain’s Minister for International Development. (A full list of speakers can be found in the Roundtable Programme.)

WHAT: The Global Roundtable, Countdown 2015, is a three-day meeting of more than 700 leaders, activists, thinkers and visionaries from 109 countries to debate, assess and evaluate 10 years of work toward implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action. It will culminate in a declaration, reviewed and signed by participants, and a framework for action to serve as a global strategy for progress, mapping priorities for the decade ahead. Events include working groups and plenary sessions, as well as cultural performances, exhibitions, and a gala dinner.

WHEN: 31 August through 2 September, 2004

Day 1: State of the World: How has the landscape changed since 1994? What are the prospects for the next decade in globalization, poverty, income distribution, human rights, women’s rights and the challenges of fundamentalism?

Day 2: State of Culture: What is the role of information technology in shaping who we are? What is the impact of media, films, television, radio and the Internet on education, sexuality and the family?

Day 3: State of Science and Health: What does it mean to be human today? How are we changing under new biotechnology, medical advances, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, behavioral research and reproductive health innovations?

WHERE: The Queen Elizabeth II (QE2) Conference Center, London, England.

HOW: Discussions will be channeled along ten subject tracks, in the context of both the ICPD and Millennium Development Goals. The tracks are:

• Youth: Half of earth’s 6.4 billion people are under 25. Are their needs for sexual and reproductive health information and care being met?
• HIV/AIDS: More than 45 million people have already died. How can this scourge be stopped?
• Resources: The Cairo consensus set forth spending goals for the 179 countries. Is there any hope of meeting those commitments?
• Abortion: Vigilant backlash against legalized abortion has polarized debate in many countries. Is there some way to resolve this issue?
• Sexuality: Some cultures stigmatize discussion of sexual behavior, and all cultures attempt to limit its expression. What is common ground? What does “sexual rights” mean in different societies?
• Poverty alleviation: The leading Millennium Development Goal corresponds to ICPD objectives. How does reproductive health care fit into this picture?
• Maternal and child health: Some countries have made major advances in reducing maternal and child mortality; others have not. Is it possible to save more newborn lives?
• Human rights: All governments now give it lip service, even the most repressive. What does it mean in the context of the Cairo consensus?
• Women’s rights: Controversy over women’s role and women’s rights has spread from the public to the private sphere of life. Is this progress or not?
• Challenges to the Programme of Action: Extremists and political fundamentalist forces are trying to overturn the international consensus. Why? Is there a resolution to basic values differences, especially related to the rights of women?

In London: Contact Cathy Bartley or Fiona Salter, 0-207-798-4221, -2, -3, -4 or -5.

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Click here for a calendar of events from the Countdown 2015 Web site

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