Ladies and Gentlemen Ministers,
Ladies and Gentlemen Ambassadors,
Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,
I am very happy to speak with you today on a subject of the utmost importance, and I thank each and every one of you for your intervention, which I am sure will help us move forward on this high subject how important and also for your presence. I am particularly delighted that Denmark and the United Nations Population Fund have chosen to be alongside France to sponsor this wonderful event.
The guarantee of sexual and reproductive rights and health is an essential prerequisite for the achievement of equal opportunities and equality between women and men. When they are called into question, it is the access of women and young girls to education, to decent employment, and their ability to participate in the economic and social development of their country that are hampered.
In 2020, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the 1995 Beijing Declaration, which reaffirmed the international commitment to guarantee the “full realization of the human rights of women and girls”. I turn to our Argentinian friends to say that we can warmly welcome great advances.
However, the fight is still far from won. The pandemic and the restrictions it demanded, which has sometimes served as a pretext to relegate sexual and reproductive health to the background, reminded us of this cruelly.
However, no setback can be tolerated. Before the United Nations General Assembly, in December 2020, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron recalled that the “pandemic cannot be used as an excuse to question the progress made in access to rights and services in matters of sexual and reproductive health ”.
The health crisis, as well as the rise of conservatism and movements aimed at calling into question these rights, on all continents, should remind us of the fragility of the achievements and the need for a strong international commitment, and always renewed.
France intends to continue to take part in this commitment and to carry it.
As the President of the Republic recalled, the defense of sexual and reproductive rights is an essential condition in the fight for equality between women and men. And it is a struggle that was declared a “great national cause” of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term and brought to the rank of a great global cause, by the joint declaration of the G7 member states, under the French presidency, in 2019.
Our feminist diplomacy calls for these issues to be taken resolutely and to the highest level, in a spirit of dialogue on the entire international scene.
This proactive approach has been reflected in particular in our “Global Strategy on Population, Sexual and Reproductive Rights and Health Issues 2016-2020”, which will soon be renewed, as well as within the framework of the “International Strategy of France for equality between women and men (2018-2022) ”.
France is also committed through its continued participation in regional partnerships such as the Ouagadougou Partnership. The creation and continued funding for 10 years of the French Muskoka Fund (FFM) is another example of this strong commitment. This is an innovative mechanism created in 2010 bringing together four United Nations agencies, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children’s Fund and UN Women, in nine countries in West and Central Africa. And the FFM aims to improve the health, especially sexual and reproductive health, and the well-being of mothers, newborns, children and adolescents in the region which has more than 120 million inhabitants. Through this mechanism, more than 143 million euros have been invested by France to improve sexual and reproductive health and rights in the region.
France is continuing on this path and will co-chair from June 30 to July 2, 2021, with Mexico, and under the aegis of UN Women, the “Generation Equality Forum”. It will be a pivotal step in making multi-actor commitments for the rights of women and girls and ensuring real progress for gender equality.
The action coalition “Body empowerment and Sexual and reproductive health and rights” will reaffirm the ambition to make these rights universal rights, free from any questioning. France is champion of the coalition alongside Argentina, Denmark, Burkina Faso and North Macedonia as well as many organizations, such as UNFPA, the World Bank’s GFF program, civil society organizations and foundations, such as the Children Investment Fund Foundation. This important meeting will make it possible to achieve concrete results in terms of objectives and actions to be carried out for the defense of SRHR.
The priority areas of work of the coalition will include securing access to reliable sex education and family planning services. Universal access to abortion and contraception must indeed be made possible without restriction of age and means, within the framework of a local service. The coalition will also work on the issue of securing and strengthening international, public and private funding allocated to actions in favor of the promotion of SRHR. The question of maintaining these priorities in times of crisis, whether health or political, will animate cross-cutting discussions.
Finally, the forum will focus on the multi-actor, international, inclusive and intergenerational approach, fundamental for large-scale action. The coalition thus encourages the involvement of all stakeholders on the issue of SRHR, in order to make possible work in partnership, in particular with civil society. France will ensure that collective and ambitious actions are put in place on these crucial subjects.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I suggest that we act together to make sexual and reproductive health and rights universal, and to ensure that tomorrow, women are free to fully dispose of their bodies. Let’s build Generation Equality together!
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