The summit featured presentations and speeches from a range of prominent representatives of international organizations and the French Government. Speakers included French Ministers in charge of Cooperation (Hon. Henri de Raincourt) and Solidarity and Social Cohesion (Hon. Roselyne Bachelot), as well as UNFPA Deputy Executive Director Mari Simonen, World Bank Gender and Development Group Director Mayra Buvinic, UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet, and IPPF Director-General Gill Greer.
It also featured detailed presentations from eminent academics, such as Professor Malcolm Potts (from the University of Berkeley’s School of Public Health) and Professor Jean-Pierre Guengant (from the Institut de Recherche pour Développement). High-profile activists from the public sphere spoke too, such as maternal health advocate (and former supermodel) Christy Turlington Burns (President of Every Mother Counts) and Georgia’s First Lady Sandra E. Roelofs (WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the health-related MDGs).
2 days of intense and thought-provoking sessions and workshops enabled all participants to share and discuss ideas relating to the vital role that girls and young women play in population dynamics and development as a whole. We heard messages of horror of the indignities suffered by girls and young women across the world; but we also heard messages of hope from people who are achieving real results on the ground. And common conclusions were identified and articulated: that there can be no more cost-effective way to drive development than investing in the developing world’s 600 million girls and young women. As Aïcha Bah Diallo, from the Forum of African Women Educationalists said, “Investing in women will give a boost to health, education, the economy and democracy. It will also promote peace and stability.”
On the summit’s closing day the parliamentarians in attendance worked to draw up a common declaration to the leaders of the G8 and G20, ahead of the G8 Summit in Deauville later this month. Consensus from the parliamentarians present came quickly, which you will find attached.
Thanks to the efforts of all the parliamentarians present, the development community has a powerful document to show its leaders of the importance and urgency to invest in the developing world’s most vulnerable and its most valuable asset, and the influence it will have on global population.
Global Parliamentarians Appeal: EN/ FR
Presentations: Minister Henri de Raincourt EN/ FR
Media coverage of summit: EN
| 
