Opening Remarks by Ms. Lalla Ben Barka, Deputy Executive Secretary of ECA
20 October 2009, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Honourable Minister,
Your Excellencies,
Distinguished participants,
Ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome all of you to ECA, and to this Regional Review Conference on the Implementation of the Dakar/Ngor Declaration and the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).

Let me start by thanking His Excellency Mr. Mekonnen Manyazewal - State Minister For Finance and Planning of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia for honouring our invitation with his presence, to deliver the opening address on behalf of our host Government.

Your presence, Excellency, bears testimony to your personal commitment to African development and the invaluable support and hospitality that we continue to receive from the Government and People of Ethiopia.

My special thanks also go to the African Union Commission and UNFPA (recognize Commissioner Gawanas and Etta) with whom we have been working closely in the organization of this Conference.

I would like to sincerely recognize the deepening collaboration between our institutions which is providing us with a much stronger position to effectively address Africa’s development priorities.

I would also like to thank all of you for this impressive turnout. This high-level participation clearly demonstrates our collective resolve to tackle Africa’s developmental challenges.

Distinguished participants,
Ladies and gentlemen,

As you already know, the Dakar/Ngor Declaration on Population, Family and Sustainable Development was adopted at the Third African Population Conference in 1992 and formed the basis of Africa’s common position that was submitted to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994.

The twenty-year Programme of Action of the ICPD provides a comprehensive framework on issues of interrelationship between population, sustainable development, and advances in education, human rights, economic status and empowerment of women.

The ICPD Programme of Action elevated the importance of human rights - promoting human dignity and equal opportunity for all people, especially those who are most marginalized.

The Programme of Action also recognized the right to development, to education, to health, including sexual and reproductive health, and the empowerment of women and gender equality as decisive factors needed to reduce poverty

The right to decide freely on the number and spacing of children was reaffirmed as a fundamental human right of individuals and parents.

The DND and the ICPD-PoA have since guided the implementation of population and related development policies in Africa.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

You will recall that the General Assembly of the United Nations mandated the Economic Commission for Africa to monitor and evaluate the Programme of Action of the ICPD.

In pursuit of this task, ECA has collaborated closely with UNFPA, the African Union Commission (AUC), the African Population Commission (APC), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and African member States in carrying out ICPD reviews at five-year intervals in 1999, 2004 and this current review.

This year, as we mark the fifteenth anniversary of the adoption of the ICPD PoA, ECA and its partners (AU and UNFPA) undertook a fifteen-year review of the implementation of the ICPD-PoA in Africa in the context of the MDGs.

The review work included collecting data from member States, and analyzing it to prepare the report before you entitled; ICPD and the MDGs: Working as one

I wish to thank our member States for responding to the survey questionnaires and for preparing country reports that were used in preparing the report.

Allow me at this juncture to share with you some of the achievements that the continent has made in the area of population and development.

The review report reveals that tremendous work has been done by African countries to formulate policies, develop appropriate legal frameworks and adopt relevant international instruments to achieve the objectives of ICPD-PoA and the MDGs.

Many countries have set up new institutions, strengthened existing ones and designed national and sectoral programmes and plans to address the various dimensions of population development.

Achievements have been made on specific issues such as:

• improved child survival;
• strengthened role of the family in post conflict countries;
• improved access to antiretroviral treatment;
• the HIV prevalence rate has either stabilized or declined in several African countries due to the adoption of a safer behavior;
• advances in malaria prevention and treatment;
• task shifting in human resources to ensure maternal survival; * increased access of youth to reproductive health services;
• increased primary and secondary enrolment rates;
• increased gender parity in primary education;
• increased level of women’s representation in national parliaments;

Distinguished participants,
Ladies and gentlemen,

These are laudable achievements to celebrate. But, we still need to redouble our efforts in all the areas of the ICPD PoA. There are daunting challenges that are severely hampering implementation of the PoA at national level.

Some countries are yet to give explicit consideration to population planning and design a specific action plan to address policy implementation.

There is a wide gap existing in most African countries between population-related policies and actual implementation.

The multiple global crises that include food insecurity, volatile fuel prices, climate change and the economic crisis are posing a major challenge to achieving the objectives of the ICPD PoA and the MDGs on the continent.

Very limited headway has been achieved on poverty reduction, eradication of hunger, maternal mortality and in addressing social exclusion. Gender based violence is still an area of great concern.

Across the continent, emergency situations caused by armed conflicts continue to beset many countries and to erode the little progress that has been made.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

To achieve the goals and objectives of the Cairo Programme of Action, we need to garner continued efforts and commitment to mobilize sufficient human and financial resources, to strengthen institutions, and to nurture stronger partnerships.

We need keep everyone engaged - policy makers, lawmakers, law enforcers, and human rights defenders must be further engaged.

We need enhanced involvement of all sectors - health, agriculture, education, financial and the private sectors. We need women, men, young people, religious and community leaders in order to develop culture-sensitive and effective programmes that will help save lives, especially the lives of women.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

In the days ahead, you will be working to produce a commitment document reflecting your decisions and the future course of implementation of the ICPD-Programme of Action over the remaining 5 years.

Your task is not an easy one but I am confident that with the critical mass of your expertise, the outcomes of our deliberations will reflect the realities on the ground.

Africa has many problems confronting it and these should be addressed and recommendations made for their resolution.

We look forward to seeing the conclusions and recommendations of our meeting here and wish you fruitful deliberations.

I thank you for your kind attention.