Development Dossier
International Planned Parenthood Federation
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International Planned Parenthood FederationOn behalf of the International Planned Parenthood Federation permit me to thank you sincerely for the opportunity to address this first Social Summit. A significant variable in the poverty problematique is the unmet need and demand of hundreds of millions of the poorest individuals, notably women, in developing countries for access to reproductive health and family planning services. How much of this demand for smaller families is a cry of despair for mere survival in misery and how much a cry of hope for a better quality of life is a painful question mark! Governments once more declared a few months ago at ICPD, Cairo, that meeting this demand was politically a moral imperative and socially a human right. However, let us not overlook that in the next two to three decades the global population will grow with a staggering 50%, largely independent of our successes in voluntary fertility regulation. It is, indeed, in this next quarter of a century that a magicians wand has to produce sustained socio‑economic growth within the severe constraints of sustainable development and within an ethical framework of global and local equity. A rapid reduction of extreme poverty is an indispensable precondition for a rapid increase in the realization of the human right to fertility regulation. With this backdrop, IPPF and its 140 national affiliates strongly support, as a conscience and advocate of the reproductive rights movement, all policies that promote elimination of poverty through gainful work, social solidarity, health, education, food, housing, water and sanitation, because such policies are not merely a commitment to social justice, but they all have real impacts on the daily wellbeing and productivity of hundreds of millions of individuals, families and communities that are deprived of these vital necessities in todays amoral world. For individuals and collectives to realize the meaning of human rights and the related responsibilities, empowerment at all levels is a must! IPPF has for some time been concerned with moving beyond the rhetoric of community involvement and participation towards testing for ourselves what it will take for us to do so. The reason we are concerned about this is that our mission in these domains has fundamentally changed in recent years. This is clearly spelt out in IPPF's strategy: "Vision 2000", adopted in 1992 and now reinforced by the ICPD Cairo Programme of Action.The rapid growth in concern over women's rights and gender issues; the social pressures against women having the methods of fertility regulation they would like to have; the debates about abortion and female genital mutilation; the epidemics of HIV; all of these show the weaknesses in our approaches to development, to the types of people we work with, and to the ways in which we work with them. As a Federation we have realised that we must address these areas of weakness if we are to improve our relevance to the lives of ordinary people. To do this we have embarked on a number of programmes that stress the importance of, firstly, learning from the people themselves, and, secondly, supporting them through services or education in the actions they themselves determine. I shall exemplify this in two ways in the field of reproductive health promotion: First, the expression and identification of needs. An area of need that has so far been badly neglected is sexual health. As this is so culturally specific and sensitive, we are approaching this by helping people to define and articulate for themselves their concerns in this area. We have already found that concerns about sexual and gender interaction are common throughout the world, and have a profound influence on many of the issues I mentioned earlier. Once articulated, people are very ready to relate these concerns to their social and economic environments. This area is also a key starting point for improving the social relevance of sexual and reproductive health services. In this context, communities served by our FPAs are supported in looking at why people do "not" use the existing services for STDs. After such exploration the communities are developing with the FPAs approaches that allow for better recognition, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of STDs, including AIDS. Next, the approach to gender. We are struggling to come to terms with the programmatic and practical implications of a truly gender‑oriented approach to reproductive health. In other words, we know that while women and men have different needs which must be addressed by reproductive health care services, these sex‑differentiated needs cannot be considered in a gender‑isolated manner. Women are affected by the way in which men's needs are met, and the reverse is also true. Thus we now increasingly approach gender equity by working with both women and men, separately and together. These examples show that we truthfully believe in the power of people to help us in the analysis of problems and services as well as to determine the future courses of action for themselves. This belief is itself the first stage on the road to true empowerment of people and thereby to accelerated social development. There are two groups, youth and women that are singled out by IPPF's Vision 2000 strategy for priority investment. There are currently more than 500 million young women and men between the ages of 15 and 19, and their numbers will keep mounting for a long time to come. Society as a whole has not been very sensitive or responsive to its young people, who become sexually active without proper access to sexual health information, education or services. Most adults have been reluctant to address this issue. But ignoring it has not made it go away. Instead there are rising incidence of adolescent pregnancy, abortion, and sexually transmitted disease. IPPF and its associations have vowed to help young people understand and realize their sexuality in a positive and responsible manner by ensuring their access to sexual and reproductive health care and by making young people key participants in the design and implementation of such programmes. Unless we act now, not only will teenage pregnancy and abortion continue to soar, but also society will sorely neglect a golden opportunity for investing in the quality of human resources for tomorrow's social and economic productivity. Above all other priorities, and as a matter of utmost urgency, IPPF and its national affiliates are committed to women's full and equal participation in all aspects of local and global development. One of the major barriers to the improvement of women's sexual and reproductive health is their appalling lack of decision‑making power at all socio‑economic levels. Without the formidable resource of womenpower, all plans we make and steps we take to improve the local and global community will largely be in vain. Women will only gain equal status through equitable social, economic and political participation and through aggressive promotion and protection of their human rights, including their sexual and reproductive rights. IPPF and its associations, through Vision 2000 are committed to this objective. We are working actively at the national and international levels as advocates for the establishment of equal rights for women. We are making special efforts in the field of sexual and reproductive health to ensure that women's perspectives are taken fully into account from research to application. We are fighting the boy preference syndrome and all its manifestations wherever it exists. We are working to increase men' s commitment and joint responsibility in all areas of sexual and reproductive health and to sensitize men to gender issues at home and in the work place. We shall advocate for independent, national and international monitoring of all governments' performance related to women's human rights. In conclusion, if we support men, women and youth in learning how to realize their sexuality in a loving and responsible manner, coercive and discriminatory sex can be largely eliminated in the coming decades, and if we provide high quality reproductive health care and family planning to all needing and demanding it we shall be able to prevent tens of millions of coercive pregnancies and motherhoods each year. Since these are perfectly doable social propositions, we trust they will receive proper support by this first Social Summit. Through realizing these and other related challenges IPPF will make its contribution towards promoting social and economic development, including eradicating both absolute poverty and social exclusion in the near future. Directory: images images -> Pelan pentaksiran kursus images -> Military callsign list as of dec 2010 images -> For Date: 02/01/2013 Friday Call Number Time Call Reason Action 13-768 0008 motor vehicle stop warning Issued images -> New embedded S images -> Creating Buy-In – Building Relationships images -> Deadline: Saturday, March 12th, 2016 images -> News items from Raising Our Voices images -> Last year four of the best Afrikaans Christian singers joined forces to tour Down Under with the production ‘Manne wat Glo’ images -> World-renowned vocal ensemble sweet honey in the rock images -> Peoples Voice Café History Download 0.58 Mb. Share with your friends:
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