Keeping Focus on Adolescents

It is a real pleasure to be here with you and address this Global Summit of G8/G20 Parliamentarians on behalf of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

I also bring you greetings from our Executive Director, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin.

It is fantastic to see leaders from so many countries, assembled in this historic venue in the beautiful city of Paris.

 

Ms. Simonen at G8/20 Global Parliamentarians Summit on Girls and Population Photo © Scorpix / Raphaël Demaret

Let me start by thanking the Conference organizers, the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (EPF), Equilibres et Populations (E&P) and Le Planning Familial (MFPF).

Special thanks go to the French Parliamentarians in Action, especially Madame Danielle Bousquet, for co-organizing and hosting this very important conference. I also want to also acknowledge, Ms. Raymonde Folco, former Member of Parliament from Canada, who has joined us today and who very ably and successfully hosted the G8/G20 Parliamentarians’ Summit last year in Ottawa.

This year, on 31 October, the world population will reach seven billion. In many ways this is a great achievement. Globally people are living longer and healthier lives, and population growth is slowing down because couples are choosing to have fewer children.

However, huge inequities persist and daunting challenges lie ahead.

While many richer countries are now concerned about low fertility and ageing, the poorest nations struggle to meet the needs of rapidly growing populations.

Gaps between rich and poor are growing, and too many people are vulnerable to food insecurity, water shortages, and weather-related disasters.

Whether we can live together in peace and prosperity on a healthy planet will depend on the choices and decisions we make today.

At the center of these global challenges, is the largest generation of young people ever – over 1.8 billion 10-24 year-olds.

In the developed countries, people under 25 constitute just under 30 per cent of the total population, but in the least developed countries their share is double that at 60 per cent. The median age in the poorest countries is under 20 years.

These young people are not only the future of our world. They are very much the present. They want their voices to be heard and they constitute an incredible opportunity the world cannot afford to miss.

The solution to many of the world’s most pressing challenges is protecting and promoting the human rights of all girls and boys.

Let us think about an adolescent girl. If we fail to protect her rights, we know that she will experience too much too soon. She will leave school too early. She will be married off and become pregnant before she’s ready. And she will have children while she’s still a child herself.

When we think about maternal mortality, the tragic reality is that we need to think about a young girl in distress who maybe didn’t want to get pregnant in the first place.

When we think about someone infected with HIV or a victim of sexual violence, it is the face of a young girl who never even got the chance to finish her education.

Everyone understands in their heart that human rights violations of a young girl are a tragedy. What is not fully understood is that investing in young people, especially adolescent girls, and promoting their rights can have a tremendous positive effect on the development of their communities and nations.

We see time and again that when budgets are reduced and programmes cut back, young people and especially young girls are so easily forgotten.

Yet the truth is that when young people are empowered, these girls and boys, young women and men, can enter the workforce educated, skilled, and healthy, and put their countries on a path of greater prosperity, peace, and progress.

Investing in adolescent girls and boys is the smartest investment a country can make. Empowering girls and boys today means a better tomorrow for all of us.

We simply cannot afford to let this potential to be squandered.

Empowering adolescent girls means promoting their rights and prioritizing them within national programmes for education and health, importantly, including access to sexual and reproductive health services and comprehensive age-appropriate sexuality education.

Unfortunately, the global funding for sexual and reproductive health has stagnated during the past decade, and funding for family planning has actually decreased while the demand for family planning keeps growing.

However, now with the Secretary-General’s Global Strategy – Every Woman, Every Child – and the G8 Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Under-five Child Health, there is a great momentum to dramatically improve women’s and children’s health.

I want to applaud the leadership of Canada and the commitment of the whole G8 in the Muskoka Initiative. UNFPA especially welcomes the initiative's emphasis on strengthening health systems and integrated health services, expanding sexual and reproductive health care, including family planning, and addressing gender inequality and promoting the human rights of girls and women.

Moreover, the government of France has demonstrated great leadership in the follow-up of the Muskoka commitment, and hosting this event in this prestigious venue reconfirms the same.  Over the years, France has also been a permanent member of donors supporting UNFPA’s regular resources and we hope this to continue. Most recently we have been informed about a significant additional support to maternal health initiatives that UNFPA is taking forward in West-Africa.

We are grateful for this additional support and I urge the presidency of France and all G8/G20 countries to maintain the momentum and commitment around women’s and children’s health as we work towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

By working in partnership together, we can make sure that all commitments are put in action. We know what to do and we need to do it now.

As parliamentarians you are uniquely positioned to support this agenda and promote the human rights of adolescent girls around the world, including their right to sexual and reproductive health. You can speak out and call on your counterparts in other countries to do the same. Everyone counts.

Your leadership for the rights of people who most need them is essential. Those who are poor, vulnerable and often voiceless need your support and we applaud your commitment.

UNFPA has a long-standing relationship working with regional parliamentarians’ networks around the world, including the European Parliamentary Forum and we are reaching out to other partners across all sectors of society.

Within the United Nations we are leading efforts as part of the so-called H4+ partnership – together with UNAIDS, UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank – to support the implementation of the Global Strategy for Women and Children’s Health in the highest burden countries.

We work closely with ministries of health, NGOs and other development partners, including G8 governments that provide funds for the Global Strategy.

Moreover, together with UNICEF, UNFPA is proud to co-lead the United Nations Task Force on Adolescent Girls with the ILO, UNESCO, UNIFEM, UN Women and the World Health Organization.

The Adolescent Girls Task Force works to educate girls; improve adolescent girls’ health, including their sexual and reproductive health; keep adolescent girls free from violence; promote adolescent girl leaders; and count adolescent girls, so they are no longer invisible.

I am proud to reaffirm our commitment to empower the hardest-to-reach adolescent girls.

UNFPA supports youth participation, leadership and access to sexual and reproductive health services and sexuality education.

This year, there are important global, regional and national opportunities to keep young people, gender and sexual and reproductive health high on the global agenda.

This June, the United Nations General Assembly holds a high-level meeting to review the global response to HIV/AIDS and to promote the continued commitment for the agenda. 

This July, the General Assembly will hold a high-level meeting on youth under the theme of dialogue and mutual understanding. The meeting is part of the International Year of Youth that was launched last August.

And, throughout the year, preparations are under way towards the Rio +20 Conference on Sustainable Development, which will take place next year in Brazil.

It is very fitting that the year of youth is the year when world population reaches 7 billion and we must get ready to renew our collective commitment for sustainable development.

I call on you to take our common spirit and commitment that is so evident in this meeting and carry our voices forward, so that they will be heard loud and clear and kept on the agenda in the G8 summit next week and beyond.

The challenges we face in a world of seven billion require us to count on each other like never before.