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High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development - 6th Meeting
Focus on Accessible Treatment, Reproductive Rights Vital for Eliminating Health Gaps, Gender Discrimination, Speakers Tell High-Level Political Forum
Speakers today voiced deep concern at the continued prevalence of the long‑standing — and often intersecting — challenges of gender discrimination and health inequality, as the Economic and Social Council’s High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development entered the third day of its annual session.
Taking up the Forum’s main task of exploring progress achieved and challenges remaining in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, representatives took part in panel discussions focused on the agenda’s health and gender equality targets. Two other panels focused on populations and countries in special situations.
Speakers participating in a discussion on Sustainable Development Goal 3 — “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages” — agreed that human health was a cross-cutting issue impacting all of the 2030 Agenda’s other goals and targets. Outlining some of the major global health achievements in recent decades, panellists nevertheless drew attention to remaining gaps and disparities, while some delegates emphasized that access to health services was a basic human right and urged their fellow Member States to treat the issue holistically.
Panellist Francesca Perucci, Assistant Director of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Statistics Division, reported that the rate of maternal death fell by 37 per cent between 2000 and 2015. While that was impressive progress, there were still 303,000 maternal deaths each year, most of which were preventable. Progress had also been rapid in child survival, but the current child mortality rate in sub-Saharan Africa was more than double the global average. Those deaths were also largely preventable, she added.
Rachel Cohen, Regional Executive Director, Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, drew attention to one “little-known” target contained within Goal 3, which was related to the research and development of vaccines and medicines for communicable and non-communicable diseases that primarily affected developing countries. Stressing that the achievement of all the Goals would be impossible given the current dearth of innovation and the high costs of medicines that remained out of reach for millions of people, she called for more biomedical enterprises that put public health and patient needs at their centre and strategies that promoted collaboration in science rather than competition.
Many speakers agreed that human health — like poverty itself — was multidimensional in nature, and that it was closely connected to other issues such as gender inequality. In that regard, the representative of the Netherlands expressed concern that many women and girls around the world lacked access to the information required to make health decisions or the health services needed to effectuate their choices, emphasizing that investments in women, girls, adolescents and youth were an investment in the world’s collective future.
Several delegates taking part in the panel on Sustainable Development Goal 5 — “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” — echoed that sentiment, with Denmark’s representative stressing that the equivalent of two jumbo jets full of women died every day from preventable causes related to reproduction and childbirth. In that context, the representative of the children and youth major group called on Member States to expand the scope of their policies to include women and girls’ sexual and reproductive rights, noting that their omission from the 2030 Agenda was perpetuating barriers to equality and empowerment.
Among a number of related and particularly timely issues spotlighted today was a recent “resurgence in authoritarian forms of governance”, along with its often disproportionate impact on women and minority communities.
Nalini Singh, Executive Director of Fiji Women's Rights Movement and representative of the women's major group, warned that authoritarian Governments often had a high tolerance for racism, sexism, attacks on human rights defenders and increased militarism. She also voiced concern over the forced eviction and displacement of communities “under the guise of green growth” and emphasized that the $21 trillion to $32 trillion currently stranded in tax havens could instead be allocated to the 2030 Agenda’s implementation. In addition, she stressed that the key to Goal 5’s successful implementation lay more with women’s autonomous movements on the ground than with the percentage of women in parliaments or other commonly referenced measurements.
The Forum also held panels focused on small island developing States and the implementation of the Samoa Pathway, as well as the particular development needs of least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and middle-income countries.
The High-Level Political Forum will reconvene at 9 a.m. on Thursday, 13 June, to continue its work.
Panel I
The first panel of the day, titled “review of implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 3 (ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages)”, was moderated by Nata Menabde, Executive Director, New York Office, World Health Organization (WHO). Francesca Perucci, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, provided a statistical snapshot. Panellists included Laura E. Flores, Permanent Representative of Panama to the United Nations, Member of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Board, and Michael Myers, Managing Director, Rockefeller Foundation. The lead discussants were Rachel Cohen, Regional Executive Director, Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative and Marie Hauerslev, Vice-President for External Affairs, International Federation of Medical Students' Associations.
Panel II
The next panel discussion, on “review of implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 5 (achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls)”, was moderated by Craig Mokhiber, Director and Deputy for the Assistant Secretary‑General for Human Rights, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). It featured two panellists: Salma Nims, Secretary General of the Commission for Women, Jordan; and Jane Sanyu Mpagi, Director of Gender and Community Development, Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development, Uganda. It also featured two lead discussants: Nalini Singh, Executive Director, Fiji Women's Rights Movement and representative of the women's major group; and Roberto Bissio, Executive Director, Instituto del Tercer Mundo and Coordinator of Social Watch, Uruguay. Also participating was Francesca Perucci, Assistant Director of the Statistical Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Panel III
Moderated by Penelope Beckles (Trinidad and Tobago), a discussion on “eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world: taking forward the Samoa Pathway” featured Shahine Robinson, Minister for Labour and Social Security, Jamaica; Tuitama Leao Talalelei Tuitama, Minister for Health, Samoa; and Maria Helena Semedo, Deputy-Director General, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Paula Vivili, Director, Public Health Division, Pacific Community, was the lead discussant.