House of Lords
12 July 2010

Good evening and thank you Jenny.
Your Excellencies, Undersecretary O'Brien, Members of Parliament, Peers, colleagues, friends and supporters, on behalf of IPPF and the 17 co-sponsoring non-governmental organizations I would like to welcome you all to this function to mark World Population Day, and to thank you all for coming.

In particular I'd like to acknowledge Viscount Craigavon, our host this evening. Janric, your commitment to the critical issues of health, rights, population and development, has been unequivocal, and you have been a tireless Vice-Chair of the All Party Parliamentarians Group (APPG). Thank you.

Similarly I wish to thank Christine McCafferty. Chris, you have played a key role in bringing your experience, knowledge and passion to bear on these critical issues. I have been privileged to observe your contribution as Chair of the APPG over many years - both here, and internationally, where you have played a key role as an effective and persuasive advocate at international meetings, and as a mentor and partner to regional and national parliamentarian groups. In particular you have been a voice for those who too often cannot speak for themselves; who have neither voice nor choice.

And thank you, Baroness Tonge, Jenny, for agreeing to take up the challenge of Chairing this important and influential all party group. You have already demonstrated your experience and commitment, and your comments at the International Parliamentarians meeting in Canada created considerable interest.

I would also like to acknowledge the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for International Development, Stephen O'Brien. 

Thank you for representing the Ministerial team, and the government. Your words complement those of our new Secretary of State, Andrew Mitchell, who, when speaking recently, in Washington and the UN, issued a clarion call for a focus on reproductive and maternal health, on women's empowerment, and investment in family planning. He recognised clearly that this is a basic human right and a fundamental freedom for women, which we, in this room, take for granted, every day.

We meet here at a critical time when the world is interconnected as never before, not by these issues, but rather by climate change and the economic crisis. Together they are inexorably eroding recent gains in development and the world’s poorest women, girls, and their children, will once again pay the highest price.

So it is commendable that at such a time this government has determined to continue to implement the existing commitment of the United Kingdom to international development and to these issues. In doing so, it will build on the very positive achievements of DfID whose status as a leading global Aid Agency was confirmed last week by its OECD peer review.

We hope too that strong partnership with civil society, including non-government organisations, will be an essential part of delivering this promise. We know community based organisations can reach people close to where they live and work, those who are vulnerable or under-served, whom governments often cannot reach.

In doing so, NGOs, like partner governments and UN agencies, must be ready to meet the challenges that have already been declared by the Secretary of State, to ensure value for money, accountability, effectiveness and transparency.

We know also that NGOs have a vital role to play as advocates for healthy public policy, together with parliamentarians and other members of civil society.

We, in this room, collectively and individually, all have a role to play. We also share a responsibility to reassure the UK public, that the funding they contribute to international development in their role as taxpayers and as global citizens, does make a difference, and can create a better, brighter world, for present and future generations.

Indeed, there is also much to celebrate at this time. With new, long awaited commitments to address the public health crisis and human rights injustice of maternal mortality through the G8, the Secretary-Generals Joint Action Plan, the US Global Health Initiative, the Gates Foundation, and the new initiatives from the UK government. 

Some countries have already begun to achieve significant declines in maternal mortality. But in critical discussions on maternal health you will hear little discussion of the third pillar needed to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity, family planning which is again seldom mentioned at the centre of MDG5B.

The theme of this year's World Population Day is 'Everyone Counts', chosen to recognise the importance of this year's round of population censuses, data analysis and population dynamics.

Indeed numerically the count is formidable. In my lifetime the world’s population has doubled and the decisions of the largest generation of young people are critical for their health and resilience, and their communities. In Sub-Saharan Africa 50% of the population is under 18 with a population of 840 million, growing at 2.4% a year.

In addition, people count and numbers matter - and the impact of population dynamics, including increasing pressure on precious resources of soil, forests and water, in the poorest countries, is a driver in preventing countries and communities from breaking free from the shackles of poverty and realising their social and economic potential.

Amartya Sen has said: “Advancing gender equity through reversing social and economic handicaps that make women voiceless and powerless may be one of the best ways of saving the environment”.

50 years after the invention of the contraceptive pill, which we in this room take for granted, and at a time when there is talk of clinical trials next year for a male contraceptive, and new technology which will enable women to predict their most fertile age, within a time frame of 3 months, 215 million women, most of them in the world's poorest countries, still cannot  access modern contraception.

Without this they cannot exercise their most basic right, they cannot choose the number and spacing of their children. They cannot begin to ensure their families are resilient in the face of inexorable climate change.  They cannot have the freedom to earn a living, to invest their earnings in their families' health and education and lift them out of poverty. Too often they will die and their children will also fail to survive.

That is why MDG5B is critical to the Secretary-General also Joint Action Plan and the Summit Outcome Document.

Without investment in maternal and sexual and reproductive health services, commodities, and comprehensive sexuality education, there is little chance of the poorest countries making a successful adaptation to climate change.  

Instead inequity and injustice will increase dramatically as climate change further erodes natural resources that are already depleted. Without investment in young people, in family planning services, and contraceptives and sexuality education there is little chance of those in the poorest countries and communities achieving the dignity and wellbeing that are their right.

There is little chance of women throwing off the burden of ill health caused by poor sexual and reproductive health so they can participate fully in society to contribute to sustainability and economic growth.

There is little chance of the world’s largest generation of young people making decisions that will result not only in their well being, but will also eliminate the gender stereotypes that contribute to violence and trap women and their families in poverty.

Too often they are denied the right to services and to information that would ensure their health, wellbeing and resilience. The fastest way to achieve change and increase resilience, and social and economic development, is to invest in young people.

Yet, in the new and very welcome discourse about women, newborns and children, little, if anything, is ever said about young people. Yet they will drive the demand for contraceptives by some 40%. Young girls’ first sexual experience is most often with an older man who has the 3Cs, cash, car and cell phone. But not the 4th – condoms.

Andrew Mitchell, the Secretary of State, said recently, quoting George Bernard Shaw, that    “indifference kills”.

The world, even now, is indifferent to the challenges which daily confront women and girls - the sexual violence and coercion, the lack of voice and choice, the lack of education and literacy, the lack of power to say no to sex, or no to unprotected sex, to say no to forced early marriage, or to a life of constant pregnancy and childbearing.

So while it is true that 'everybody counts’, to misquote another great English writer, “it is equally true that some count more than others.” And some things that count cannot be counted.
 
15 years after Beijing, it is time to show now - that girls, and women truly do count, it is time to invest in women and girls, in their education, health and well being, in their right to the most basic of human freedoms, to choose the number and spacing of their children. It is time to invest not only in ensuring safe pregnancies and births, but also to ensure that all births are wanted.

It is time to accept the realities of the 21st century and invest in young people. Unless we do so we cannot hope for resilient, sustainable communities, and a resilient sustainable planet. Investment in family planning, at the centre of a comprehensive approach to reproductive health will reduce maternal mortality and morbidity, reduce HIV, reduce violence and coercion, reduce infant mortality and morbidity, and drive sustainable development. That is why MDG5B is critical to our work, to our individual and collective advocacy, and to funding.

Universal Access to reproductive health was the missing link of the MDGs for 7 long years.

As a result, we lost too many opportunities and too many lives. This cannot be allowed to happen again. It must be at the heart of the MDGs as we move forward to 2015.