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Secretary-General’s Post-2015 Development Agenda Synthesis Report - http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5527SR_advance%20unedited_final.pdf
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Following this Statement, see over 80 organization endorsements from over 15 countries.
UNLEASH ADOLESCENT
GIRLS’ POTENTIAL: A Response to the UN Secretary-General’s Synthesis Report
December 19, 2014
On Thursday, December 4, 2014, the United Nations
Secretary-General released The Road to Dignity by 2030: Ending Poverty,
Transforming All Lives and Protecting the Planet, a report that laid out
six human rights and sustainability principles to guide us towards achieving
sustainable development. The Report highlighted the importance of including
youth in the post-2015 international development process, but could have gone
further in affirming the unique rights and needs of more than 250 million
adolescent girls living in poverty today. Both in the Girl
Declaration and in the Bali Declaration, girls and young people have made clear
that the world they desire upholds rights and equality for all people. If we
are to “leave no one behind,” we must pay special attention to adolescent
girls, as they are among the most vulnerable and hardest to reach populations,
are often the last to benefit from development interventions, but are also key
to accelerating progress toward a more sustainable world.
If we are to truly achieve the stated goal of an ambitious,
transformational and universal post-2015 agenda that ensures equality,
nondiscrimination, equity and inclusion at all levels, adolescent girls’ rights
and needs must be meaningfully included and reflected throughout the process.
Despite a significant increase in global attention and commitment to adolescent
girls, including recommendations in the final Open
Working Group (OWG) document, the Report has missed the
opportunity to reaffirm previous explicit and hard-fought references to
adolescent girls. It is critical that girls’ lived realities, including the
multiple, cross-cutting barriers that adolescent girls face, some of which are
unique to adolescent girls, are addressed throughout the post-2015 process so
that girls have the ability to reach their full potential to be leaders in
their communities, countries and the world.
In order to address and advance girls’ rights and empowerment in
the post-2015 agenda, we call on the global community in 2015 to build upon and
strengthen historical moments and documents promoting gender equality. The
Beijing Platform for Action, the International Conference on Population and
Development Programme of Action and their respective reviews and the Commission
on the Status of Women have all called repeatedly for gender equality to be a
foundational basis for development.
Also critical to achieving sustainable development that puts
people at the heart of the post-2015 agenda is ensuring education is guaranteed
beyond the primary level, and that all adolescent girls are able to access,
transition to and complete a quality secondary education in a safe and
supportive environment. Developing and using robust civil registration and
vital statistics (CRVS), including birth registration, is key to educational
access, as well as access to justice and vital services. While the Report
pushes for the international community to deliver a full range of health
services for women, children and youth, which is an admirable goal, no
sustainable development agenda can be successful without ensuring universal
access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and comprehensive
sexuality education (CSE). From the Millennium Development Goals, we know that
without explicitly mentioning critical issues such as those listed above, they
will not be acted upon. Therefore, we must ensure these important issues, many
of which were substantively addressed in the OWG document, remain an integral
part of negotiations moving forward.
We welcome the call to end the practice of child, early and forced
marriage (CEFM) everywhere, and the focus on ensuring laws and institutions
protect the human rights of women and girls so they are free from violence, and
without discrimination. It is important that CEFM, a cross-cutting practice rooted in
deeply embedded gender inequality and discrimination, should not only be
reflected in the context of justice. The final framework must also address and
respond to the realities of already married girls and other harmful
traditional practices, including female genital mutilation (FGM),
which hinder the achievement of women and girls’ human rights, along with
the overall success of the development goals.
We agree with the Secretary-General’s recognition
that “no society can reach its full potential if whole segments of that
society, especially young people, are excluded from participating in,
contributing to, and benefiting from development.” We
believe this inclusive ambition will not be realized unless we explicitly
include adolescent girls’ specific priorities in the post-2015 agenda in their
own right, not hidden beneath the broader categories of women, children and
youth. The next development framework must clearly define effective
participatory and accountability mechanisms through which all people, including
girls, will have a meaningful role in creating, monitoring and providing
feedback on governments’ progress in meeting their commitments. We call on
Member States to ensure that the voices of adolescent girls, among the most
vulnerable and marginalized populations in the world, are heard, respected and
acted upon in an equal manner to those of others.
The international community has recognized girls as key to moving
forward the entire sustainable development agenda. We look forward to working
together to ensure that the hard-fought provisions on adolescent girls
in the OWG document, and among the international community more generally,
remain central to the post-2015 agenda moving forward.
Signatories:
Action Works Nepal
Advocates for Youth
AEEFG, Tunisie
African Life Center
African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET)
African Women’s Network for Community Management of Forests
(REFACOF)
Akshara Centre, India
Alliance for Arab Women, Egypt
All India Women’s Conference
American Jewish World Service (AJWS)
Amnesty International
Apropriat Comunication Technique for Development (ACT)
Association of War Affected Women
Breakthrough
Bridges of Hope Project
CAFSO-WRAG for Development, Nigeria
Campaign2015+ International
CARE International
Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE)
Centro de Estudios de la Mujer
Child and Youth Finance International (CYFI)
dance4life
Dandelion, Kenya
Doctors’ Environmental Association (IDEA)
Edge of Seven
Equality Now
Equidad de Género: Ciudadania, Trabajo y Familia, Mexico
Family Care International
FOKUS – Forum for Women and Development
Fundacion para Estudio e Investigation de la Mujer (FEIM,
Argentina)
Gender, Leadership and Social Sustainability (GLASS) Research Unit
GirlForward
Global Alliance for Development Foundation (GADeF)
GlobalGirl Media
Global Network for Community Development
Global Poverty Project
Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS (GYCA)
Haiti Adolescent Girls Network
International Alliance of Women
International Center for Research on Women
International Federation of Women Lawyers
International Federation of Women in Legal Careers
International Peace Initiatives, Kenya
International Planned Parenthood Federation
International Women’s Health Coalition
Ipas
Karama
Let Girls Lead
Libyan Forum for Civil Society
Management Sciences for Health
Maria Ebun Foundation
MEXFAM, AC
National Alliance of Women Human Rights Defenders, Nepal
National Alliance of Women’s Organizations (NAWO-UK)
Nnabagereka Development Foundation (NDF)
Okogun Odigie Safewomb International Foundation (OOSAIF)
Plan International
Population Action International
Promundo-US
Public Health Institute
Red Nacional de Adolescentes y Jovenes por los Derechos Sexuales
(RedNAC, Argentina)
Réseau des Organisations Féminines d’Afrique Francophone (ROFAF)
Resource Center for Women and Girls
Rozaria Memorial Trust
Rukmini Foundation
Saathi, Nepal
SAMYAK, Pune
Union de l’Action Féministe
US National Committee for UN Women
Vacha Charitable Trust
Winrock International
Women Deliver
Women Graduates-USA
WomenOne
Women’s Refugee Commission
Women’s UN Report Network (WUNRN)
Women Watch Afrika, Inc.
WOREC, Nepal
World Pulse
World YWCA
YouAct, European Youth Network on Sexual Reproductive Health and
Rights
Young Women’s Leadership Institute (YWLI)
4Girls GLocal Leadership (4GGL)