Report: Beyond 2014 Global Report
ICPD (International Conference on Population and Development)
235 pages

Excerpt from launch announcement
The ICPD Beyond 2014 Global Report is the culmination of a landmark UN review of progress, gaps, challenges and emerging issues in relation to the ICPD Programme of Action. It gathers data from 176 member states, alongside inputs from civil society and comprehensive academic research.
The report highlights the fact that development gains from the past 20 years cannot be sustained unless governments tackle the inequalities that hurt the poorest and most marginalized.

It also finds that growing inequalities will undo significant gains in health and longevity made over the past 20 years. To sustain these gains, the report argues that governments must pass and enforce laws to protect the poorest and most marginalized, including adolescent girls and women affected by violence as well as rural populations. The document also underlines that the number of people living in extreme poverty in developing countries has fallen dramatically from 47 per cent in 1990 to 22 per cent in 2010 but many of the estimated 1 billion people living in the 50-60 poorest countries will stagnate as the rest of the world gets richer. “Nearly 1 billion people have escaped extreme poverty. Child and maternal mortality have been cut by nearly one half. There are more laws to protect and uphold human rights,” said United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. “But enormous inequalities remain in the realization of those rights and access to vital services.”

The report is the first truly global review of progress, gaps, challenges and emerging issues in relation to the landmark International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo in 1994. It gathers data from 176 countries alongside inputs from civil society and comprehensive academic research. The findings provide compelling evidence strongly reinforcing the ground-breaking focus of the Cairo Programme of Action, placing human rights and individual dignity at the heart of development…

Excerpt from Executive Summary
“…Our greatest shared challenge is that our very accomplishments, reflected in ever greater human consumption and extraction of the earth’s resources, are increasingly inequitably distributed, threatening inclusive development, the environment and our common future.

The evidence of 2014 overwhelmingly supports the ICPD consensus that respect, protection, promotion and fulfilment of human rights are necessary preconditions for improving the dignity and well-being of women and adolescent girls and for empowering them to exercise their reproductive rights; and that sexual and reproductive health and rights and understanding the implications of population dynamics are foundational to sustainable development. Safeguarding the rights of young people and investing in their quality education, decent employment opportunities, effective livelihood skills, and access to sexual and reproductive health and comprehensive sexuality education strengthen young people’s individual resilience and create the conditions under which they can achieve their full potential…”