The 48th Session of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD), ended last Friday and was viewed as one
of the last opportunities to send a strong message of support for the
inclusion of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and its
myriad of related issues including abortion, in the Post 2015 agenda.
Official speakers, invited experts, and many NGOs staging side events,
attempted to present, as fact, the opinion that SRHR is central to
development and must be the cornerstone of the new development
goals. Their attempts failed as countries were divided on the issues and
could not agree on an outcome document.
Throughout the negotiations, the CPD facilitator, Rubén Armando Escalante Hasbún (El Salvador), refused
to allow debate on contentious paragraphs in the outcome document
related to "sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights" and
CSE claiming that country positions were well-known. Instead, countries
with opposing views were instructed to meet and reach agreement on the
issues themselves rather than take time during negotiations.
Following
eight days of closed door negotiations on other paragraphs in the draft
document an official Chair's proposal was presented on the last day of
the meeting since Member States could not reach agreement on a consensus
document. The Chair implored delegations "to go along with the text".
They did not and shocked many in the room, including UNFPA and
the Commission.
The African Group, represented by Nigeria, was the first to speak and requested an additional ten minutes for discussion. Nigeria's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Usman Sarki,
speaking eloquently and diplomatically, stated that the text could not
be a "final text" as it still contained "notions, positions and
language" that the African Group could not support and language that would impose "impossible and unacceptable commitments" upon Member States. He implored the Chair to "go the extra mile" and "allow further negotiations to remove objectionable elements." (UN Web TV coverage)
The request was refused by the Chair of the Commission, Ms. Bénédicte Frankinet (Belgium), who surprisingly withdrew the text and instead called for a summary of the draft's negotiations.
She expressed the opinion that the text was the best attempt "to
reconcile very opposite positions on the issues before us". Ambassador
Sarki expressed his disappointment and explained that the
African Group did not request nor want the text to be withdrawn; it only
desired a brief period for discussion to make the document acceptable.
The
action by the African Group, and the support it received from other
countries, demonstrates the growing SRHR and CSE fatigue of many
developing UN Member States. Ambassador Sarki stated that in the future
UN officials "should refrain from putting language in
drafts on which there is no consensus" adding that Member States "have
resisted the imposition of unhelpful ideas and concepts on all the
membership."
A delegate from the Pacific Island nation Nauru
expressed national outrage at UNFPA for its attempts to "discredit" his
government, for "harassing" its capital to change its position on
reproductive rights and comprehensive sexuality education, and for using
the regional UNFPA office to pressure the Nauru government. He asked: "Why does UNFPA think it can do this? Is it because we are the smallest Member State?"
The delegate stated that Nauru's Permanent Representative wanted the
record of CPD to include Nauru's opposition to UNFPA's actions and
pressure on its country.
Babatunde
Osotimehin, Executive Director of UNFPA, stated in his remarks that he
regretted the text was not adopted and that inside is "all the things we wish to see" in order to jump-start a transformation to a sustainable world in Post 2015. Clearly, he was not listening to the African Group's criticism of the text for it contained "things" that African and a large number of other Member States do not wish to see in their countries or in Post 2015.
PNCI suggests that UNFPA's Executive Director and
other UN officials listen to what countries say they really want and
need for development, and stop trying to impose their population control
and SRHR agenda on sovereign Member States, and in the case of
Nauru--and perhaps other countries--stop the harassment and pressure to
abandon values and beliefs that respect life from conception and
values the critical role of the family.
NGOs promoting SRHR were stunned at their historic loss. One activist group from the Netherlands present at CPD explained on its website:
"On
one side, a heavy weight representing like-minded countries standing
firm for the human rights of all, including sexual and reproductive
health rights (SRHR); while on the other side a heavy and intimidating
African Group, supported by the Arabs, looking to restrict such rights
on religious, cultural and traditional grounds.
What
happened next is historic and has never happened in the 21 year history
of the CPD. After brief deliberations, the Nigerian representative on
behalf the African group protested and called for ten more minutes to
discuss the content of the text. He wanted additional changes to the
chair's Resolution. The Chair however stuck to her part of the deal:
Take it or leave it, and before we knew what was happening, the Chair
withdrew her text. Thus, the faith of CPD48 was sealed: no Resolution
for the first time in its history...lacking a Resolution may have
implications for future sessions of the CPD."
The
failure to reach consensus at CPD sends a strong message to the United
Nations that countries have had enough of the pressure to conform to a
"radical foreign agenda" at a crucial time as the process to determine
the Sustainable Development Goals continues through July with the
General Assembly adopting the goals and targets in a special session in
September.
Many nations simply want
and need access to food, water, sanitation, life-affirming health care,
education and employment--all essential for the health and dignity of
individuals and critical to development. They view people as part of the
solution and not as the problem. The UN ought to listen.