Women waiting outside clinic. Photo: IRIN/Aubrey

Next to Ministers and  First Ladies, health experts, UN representatives, advocates and youth representatives, this year’s Women Deliver Conference that was held in Washington, D.C. from 7-9 June 2010 also hosted a Parliamentarians’ Forum for the first time which brought together more than 50 Parliamentarians.

“The biggest enemy of women’s health and rights is political indifference”, Jill Sheffield, President of Women Deliver remarked during the opening plenary session.

Ms. Safiye Çağar, Director IERD, UNFPA highlighted the important role Parliamentarians have in achieving maternal health and universal access to reproductive health until 2015. “You are responsible for listening to your constituents, to represent them adequately and to act as legislators”, Ms Çağar emphasised. Mr. Bert Koenders, former Minister for Development Co-operation of the Netherlands said that the role of Parliamentarians is underestimated. “Politicians need to break the silence that still surrounds MDG 5 and sexual and reproductive health and rights”, Koenders remarked.

The Parliamentarians’ Forum culminated in a Parliamentarians’ Statement. Amongst others, Parliamentarians called for additional US $12 billion a year to be invested in women and girls and  to actively work towards the establishment of a global funding mechanism for family planning, mothers and children with other international donors. The statement urges Ministers to establish realistic and verifiable annual action plans for reaching individual MDG targets with a special emphasis on MDG 5 to be presented at the UN High Level Meeting on the MDGs and commit to take a leading role in communicating the societal, economic, political and cultural benefits of investing in women and girls to key stakeholders. Parliamentarians were united in the necessity to pressure governments to deliver for women and girls, the need to reduce barriers for access to quality family planning services and the centrality this plays for the status of women in society as well as the need to improve co-operation between countries and continents.

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