The Europe and Central Asia Regional Consultation on Post-2015 Development Agenda titled “Perspectives from Europe and Central Asia on the Post-2015 Development Agenda” was a cooperative effort organized and supported by the Turkish government and about a dozen UN entities.
During the Government Consultations on 7-8 November, participants and delegates from more then 60 countries attended 6 panels under three themes, ‘Equality of Opportunity and Outcome’, ‘Putting Planet and People First’ and ‘Making the New Agenda Work’ and discussed issues including human rights, education, health, population dynamics, migration, decent jobs, social protection and environment as well as how to measure and monitor progress in sustainable development. IFMSA was represented by Anna Rasmussen from Denmark and Ljiljana Lukic from Croatia, continuing our work after the CSO Regional Consultations on 6 November.
On 7 November IFMSA presented the outcomes of CSO consultations on Gender Equity, Health and Social Protection and Environment and Health to governments, calling for:
•Universal Health Coverage, that is human rights-based
•Health policies address underlying and structural inequalities
•Creating new and strengthening existing policies to meet the health needs of marginalized groups
•Providing universal access to prevention, diagnostics, treatment and care strategies for NCDs, HIV and mental health
•Ensuring sufficient budgetary allocation
•Providing health care providers with non-discriminatory and gender-sensitive training
•Providing comprehensive & integrated package of sexual and reproductive health information & services, that is accessible, affordable, available & of the highest quality
•Recognizing adolescents and young people as rights-holders and recognize their sexuality, ensure access to youth-friendly services
•Targets to eliminate environmental determinants of NCDs
Another emphasis was on the youth participation in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. IFMSA with youth representatives from Major Group for Children & Youth delivered a statement during last day panel „Making the New Agenda Work“ which had strong focus on youth participation. We called for governments to have the courage to champion the ‘controversial’ issues and adopt a human rights-based, holistic and gender-equitable approach to the post-2015 agenda, because the world youth needs leaders that keep promises, champion sexual rights, foster economic justice and leave us a healthy planet while accepting youth as stakeholders and not as a target group. The statement was shared on almost all UNDP national offices and some national delegations Twitter and Facebook Pages. The panel moderator, Olivier Adam, Director UNDP Regional Center, greeted the youth statement, which encouraged Bulgarian delegates to share their experience with Youth Delegate Programme and called all present member states to include youth in their delegations to the UN.
Ms. Cihan Sultanoğlu, Chair of the UN Development Group for Europe and Central Asia, and Regional Director UNDP invited IFMSA and other youth representatives to meet with her to gain insight into youth issue in the region as well as how UNDP on regional and national level contribute to meaningful youth participation. During the open discussion we presented IFMSA’s work with the Post-2015 Development Agenda, Sustainable Development Goals and ICPD and the impact we had in the processes and shared our concerns about regional governments accountability and youth participation on national and international level while Ms. Cihan Sultanoğlu saluted youth organizations’ contribution to dissemination of the World We Want survey and interest in global issues.
We also met with the WHO Europe representatives that thanked IFMSA for advocating for health-in-all-policies and shared ideas on future collaboration.
The joint CSO statement can be found on: http://tiny.cc/csoconsultations
The youth statement can be found on: http://tiny.cc/hly75w
All the relevant documents on regional CSO consultations as well as governments consultations can be found on:http://www.worldwewant2015.org/EuropeCentralAsia
Anna and Ljiljana
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