What a week it was! ARROW along with the partners from Bangladesh, Nepal, Laos, and India made a remarkable presence at the fifty-seventh session of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD57) in New York from April 29 – May 3, 2024.
This year was an important year for us, as we marked the thirty-year anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo and its Programme of Action (PoA). The fifty-seventh session of CPD was dedicated to this special marking, and hence the theme of the session was, ‘Assessing the status of implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and its contribution to the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development during the decade of action and delivery for sustainable development.’
Political Declaration of the CPD57
The Political Declaration is the main outcome document that was negotiated by the Member States during the CPD57. The Chair of the Bureau, Noemí Espinoza Madrid (Honduras) called for a series of consultations and briefings with the Civil Society Organisations (CSO), Member States and Regional Groups prior to and after releasing the Zero Draft of the Declaration.
The Zero Draft of the Political Declaration was released during the first week of April with a balanced text. ARROW also actively participated at the briefings and consultations to provide concrete and strong recommendations around affirming the ICPD PoA and its review outcomes, building strong linkages with the Summit of the Future (SoTF), language inputs on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE), young people, and adolescents. However, all this did not make it to the final Declaration.
The draft Declaration underwent a series of informal consultations in the week prior to the session. Revision 1 and 2 were subsequently released which saw an on and off inclusion and removal of language around families, and qualifiers around the language of SRHR. ARROW actively provided inputs to both the revisions through the International Sexual and Reproductive Rights Coalition (ISRRC). We also connected with like-minded Member States in the Asia-Pacific region via our partners and our pre-established linkages to strengthen the text of the Declaration around SRHR.
The final negotiated Political Declaration was presented by the CPD Chair on Day 1 of the CPD57. It basically affirmed the Programme of Action of the ICPD and key actions for its further implementation and the outcomes of its reviews, and noted the outcomes of the regional review conferences.
SOURCE: Recapping ARROW and Partners’s Advocacy at the CPD57, E-mail from ARROW, 21 May 2024