Global improvements in sexual and reproductive health and rights in recent decades are masking communities that are increasingly being left behind in both poor and developed countries, a United Nations official has warned.
Monica Ferro, director of the UN Population Fund in London, today launched The State of the World’s Population 2024 report, with indicators showing improvements in the living conditions of women and children.
In his conversation with Lusa, he highlighted the achievements in the field of sexual and reproductive health over the past 30 years since the implementation of the Cairo Program of Action, which resulted from the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Egypt in 1994.
Over the past three decades, maternal mortality and child marriage rates have fallen, new HIV infections have fallen, and access to contraceptives has increased.
However, “some global figures hide the specific situations of communities that have been left behind,” warned Monica Ferro, stressing that progress has not been equal for everyone.
The organization believes that worsening inequality is “due to systemic discrimination” such as “racism, ageism, discrimination against ethnic minorities and gender discrimination.”
National figures, he said, “don’t tell the whole story” and it’s not just a problem in the poorest regions.
“There are large areas in countries where progress is lacking or stagnant. There is not a single country in the world that can say that it has fulfilled this entire Cairo program,” he warned.
Monica Ferro argues that it is necessary to know different communities well to develop effective policies, citing as an example a survey conducted among black women living in the United States of America and the United Kingdom.
“We highlight maternal mortality in the black community in the United Kingdom and the United States not as a way to condemn, but to praise the fact that they provide data on these communities. With this data, we can develop more effective programs and achieve these goals. man,” he explained.
The report warns of the need for projects to be community-focused as “there are no programs that can reach everyone in an empowering and inclusive way.”
In this scenario, Portugal is no exception: research shows that people belonging to communities and groups in vulnerable situations are those who fall behind the most.
“This approach, unfortunately, applies to all countries, both developed and developing. This is not an agenda for developing countries, although we know that where there are scarce resources and lack of democratic regimes, this agenda becomes increasingly relevant. presses.”
The report also emphasizes that “happiness cannot be determined by the gender you are born into or the country in which you are born.”
Also present at the meeting, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Nuno Sampaio defended the need to integrate migrants “so that peripheries are not created where inequality and discrimination persist.”
The Secretary of State stressed that there are “many issues” that go beyond the work on gender equality and women’s rights: “There is a demographic rights aspect that relates to what can be done in developing countries.”
Recalling that the growth of the African population and its “demographic vitality” is accompanied by “aging in the most populous societies, as is the case in Europe and Portugal,” the government official defended the need for “diplomacy for demography and diplomacy for migration.” “.
Nuno Sampaio also emphasized “women’s rights, non-discrimination and everything that needs to be done in terms of comprehensive social development and in particular gender equality, which must be cross-cutting across all policies.”
The President of the P&D Fator Association, Graça Campinos Posas, highlighted the improvements recorded in recent years, without forgetting the setbacks in various issues such as domestic violence, including against children, adolescents and the elderly, and emphasizing the need to support projects.
Investing an additional €79 billion in family planning and maternal health could save one million women between 2022 and 2050, according to a report published this Wednesday.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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