From 1-5 March 2010, 11 European Parliamentarians gained first hand insight into the 15 years UN review of the implementation of the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment thanks to a Parliamentary delegation visit organised by the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (EPF) in the context of the EPF Parliamentary Taskforce on the UN.

The aim of the delegation visit was twofold: to bundle and reinforce the voice of Members of Parliament at UN level and to ensure that Delegates are equipped with first-hand information about the latest developments and initiatives at the UN with regard to sexual and reproductive health and rights, women’s empowerment and gender equality. Both aspects allowed Delegates to assess the performance of their governments vis-à-vis SRHR at UN level and reinforced their commitment to hold their government accountable on commitments made with regard to the above-mentioned topics.

Focussing on women’s unmet need for sexual and reproductive health and family planning services along with the reproductive health and rights situation of female adolescents and young girls, the establishment of the new UN Women’s Entity, the role of the Vatican at the UN, and the upcoming high-level meeting on the MDGs in September 2010, EPF Delegates benefited from briefings with major actors and prominent voices in the SRHR field. These included Ms Safiye Cagar, Director IERD, UNFPA and Ms Thea Fierens, Director of the Division for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, UNFPA, the UN Deputy Secretary-General Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro, the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the UN, H.E. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the acting Head of the EU Delegation to the UN, Pedro Serrano, as well as representatives of other UN programmes and funds (UNDP, UNIFEM) and US-based SRHR advocacy and research partners (Population Council, Catholics for Choice, Women Deliver, Guttmacher Institute, IPPF Western Hemisphere Region).

The briefings allowed delegates to assess the progress that has been made in the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) and to identify the remaining gaps and challenges. These include amongst others: the lack of robust, timely, comparable and sex-disaggregated data to evaluate progress, the uneven progress in de facto implementing the BPFA in crucial areas such as women’s health, the human rights of women, the health and rights of the girl child, the role of women in armed conflict as well as the urgent need to mainstream gender equality into other policy fields more coherently.

During the visit, the EPF delegation focused on the importance of legislative and budgetary implications enabling long-term political commitment for reproductive health needs of women. The EPF Parliamentarians in turn relayed these concerns for greater long-term funding commitments and called for unstinting support for women's rights and SRHR directly to their national delegations meeting within the CSW. At the end of the visit, Parliamentarians concluded on the urgent need to hold their governments accountable for the commitments made with regard to women’s reproductive health and rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment around the world.

The EPF Parliamentarian Delegation included:
Hon. Azra Alajbegovic, MP Bosnia & Herzegovina
Hon. Petra Bayr, MP Austria
Hon. Danielle Bousquet, MP France
Hon. Öznur Çalik, MP Turkey
Hon. Laia Ortiz Castellvi, MP Catalonia, Spain
Hon. Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, MP Finland
Hon. Christine McCafferty, MP United Kingdom
Senator Fiona O’Malley Ireland
Hon. Sirpa Pietikaïnen, MEP European Parliament, Finland
Senator Tudor Udristoiu Romania
Hon. Sacid Yildiz, MP Turkey