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UN 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)