Every day, over 700 women and girls die - one every two minutes, from preventable causes related to childbirth and pregnancy. Despite this stark reality, this week, a small minority of states tried to sabotage UN negotiations to push an anti-rights and anti-health agenda on the world.
From April 7th to 11th 2025, the 58th session of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD) took place with the theme of “Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages”. Governments from all over the world came together in a moment of global health crises to address persistent and continued threats that jeopardize the health and wellbeing of all women and girls worldwide.
This UN process is a critical space where governments, UN agencies, civil society and young people come together to discuss priorities and make shared commitments on sexual and reproductive health and rights. For over 30 years, governments have agreed on standards for access to health services for women and girls. A very small minority of vested interests are determined to use this convening to attack the Sustainable Development Agenda. We refuse to allow the malicious undermining of hard won gains that impact the lives of millions of women and girls around the world.
As recently as last year, governments from all regions of the world reached an agreement to reaffirm these shared goals and commitments. This week, in the face of efforts to sabotage the discussions and negotiations, a vast majority of countries have stepped up to hold the line on the right to health, especially of all women and girls. This disruptive behaviour from a very small minority of extremist anti-rights administrations, is not just a threat to the agenda being discussed today, but also for international cooperation on human rights and sustainable development at large. They are preventing the international community from moving forward and making progress for people’s health, rights and well-being.
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Advocacy
This disruptive behaviour from a very small minority of extremist anti-rights administrations, is not just a threat to the agenda being discussed today, but also for international cooperation on human rights and sustainable development at large. They are preventing the international community from moving forward and making progress for people’s health, rights and well-being.
We will continue to steadfastly defend the human rights of all women and girls over the course of their lives through spaces of international cooperation like the UN and beyond. This is the moment for governments, UN agencies and civil society to unite, to work together towards the defense of multilateralism, peace, human rights and gender equality.
We are strongest together. Let’s raise our voices and use all the mechanisms to stop the roll-back on rights and continue our fight for the integral ICPD agenda. Let’s be bold and creative in our strategies.
We shall prevail.
In solidarity,
ISRRC.
1- ISRRC is a coalition of sexual and reproductive health and rights organizations from all regions of the world dedicated to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights. Since 1999, ISRRC has been engaged in work relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights and aims to mobilize and strategize around each session of the Commission on Population and Development, raise awareness of SRHR, and advance implementation of the ICPD. IPPF is one of the co-conveners of ISRRC.
2- The International Conference on Population and Development was adopted by consensus in 1994, and was reaffirmed at the UN in 2024 on its 30th anniversary.
