PRESS RELEASE: MPs commit to advancing the 2030 Agenda

Ottawa, 23 October 2018 – More than 90 parliamentarians from over 70 countries have agreed on a forward-looking declaration that aims to foster understanding of and consensus around the urgency to address current political discourse on sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Meeting over two days in Ottawa, the gathered parliamentarians renewed their commitment to the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), and discussed progress made towards implementing its recommendations.

The 7th International Parliamentarians’ Conference on the Implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action (IPCI) came at a landmark moment for the population and development community as it prepares to observe the 25th anniversary of the ICPD next year.

In the agreed Ottawa Statement of Commitment, parliamentarians pledged to work toward a world “where preventable maternal deaths are a thing of the past, where unmet need for family planning is met, where gender-based violence and harmful practices do not exist, where young people can live healthy and productive lives, where stigmatisation and discrimination have no place in society and where reproductive rights are promoted, respected and protected.”

The parliamentarians resolved to mobilising their constituencies and governments to make bold efforts to fully implement the ICPD Programme of Action and achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030.

The parliamentarians pledged, among other actions to:

• Enact laws, policies and programmes for the enforcement of laws and policies to respect and protect the sexual and reproductive health and rights of all individuals;
• Promote gender equality and empowerment of women and girls to have full control over their bodies and lives;
  Advocate for the provision of universal health coverage, including accessible and high quality sexual and reproductive healthcare;
• Adopt legislation to eliminate all harmful practices, including child and forced marriage and female genital mutilation, and further enact laws on raising the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 years;
• Work with governments to reduce abortion-related deaths by providing non-discriminatory universal post-abortion care;
• Remove legal barriers that prevent women and adolescent girls from access to safe abortion;
• Advocate for increased development assistance budgets for population assistance, in particular for those in vulnerable countries, and ensure the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product (GNP) for official development assistance is met;
• Advocate for at least 10 per cent of national development budgets and development assistance budgets, for sexual and reproductive health programmes, including family planning and reproductive health commodities, and the prevention of STIs, including HIV and AIDS.

The two-day event was organised by the Canadian Association of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (CAPPD), the Inter-American Parliamentary Group on Population and Development (IAPG), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Global Affairs Canada (GAC), the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (EPF), and Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights.

For more information, please follow the conference on twitter @IPCI_Conference or with the hashtag #IPCI2018.