The European Parliament Working Group on Population, Sustainable Development and Reproductive Health (EPWG) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) recently organised an event in the European Parliament to launch the State of World Population 2005, which stresses that gender equality and reproductive health are indispensable to the realization of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Key speakers at the event were Ms Imelda Helkin, Deputy Executive and Assisant Secretary General at UNFPA, and Ms Lieve Fransen, Head of Unit B3 at the European Commission, Development Directorate General.
The report, The Promise of Equality: Gender Equity, Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals, explores the degree to which the global community has fulfilled pledges made to the world’s most impoverished and marginalized peoples. It tracks progress, exposes shortfalls and examines the links between poverty, gender equality, human rights, reproductive health, conflict and violence against women and girls. It also examines the relationship between gender discrimination and the scourge of HIV/AIDS. It identifies the vulnerabilities and strengths of history’s largest cohort of young people and highlights the critical role they play in development.
The MDGs constitute a promise by the world’s leaders to find solutions to challenges that plague humanity. The eight goals range from halving extreme poverty to tackling the problem of maternal mortality, and reversing the HIV/AIDS epidemic-all by 2015. As well as pinpointing an actual date for their achievement, the MDGs include one goal-promote gender equality and empower women-that is critical to the success of the other seven. Although the goal of universal access to reproductive health by 2015, agreed at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), was not explicitly included in the MDGs, investments in this area are now considered essential to their achievement.
State of World Population Report 2005 Powerpoint Presentation
