International Activities

High-level initiatives organised at international level offer unique opportunities to build political capacity and support for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in arenas that set the international policy agenda and map out policy directions. These activities are generally prepared in NGO networks/platforms created for the purpose, which aim to influence Dutch parliamentarians and policymakers. WPF usually is able to extend these NGO positions to the European level, through the contacts with European NGOs and Dutch policymakers and parliamentarians.

Activities

6 february 2007: International Day of Zero Tolerance against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
Roy Brown, board member of WPF and representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), gave a speech against FGM at the Palais des Nations, Geneva. WPF and IHEU want to bring attention to the important decision that outlaws FGM for all Muslims, issued by a conference of leading Islamic scholars at Al-Azhar Unversity, Egypt on 22-23 november 2006.
WPF and IHEU formulated a statement for the 51st session of the Commission on Status of Women (CSW) 2007 on Violence against the girl child. The meeting will be held from 26 february until 9 march 2007 in New York. Anneke Wensing will attend the meeting on behalf of WPF.

2006

From May 31 untill June 2, Yvonne Bogaarts attended the Review of the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS which was held in New York.
WPF put forward the Call to Action from the conference “What about sex?”, organised in collaboration with Youth Incentives, March 6-7. The Political Declaration which was adopted at the end of the Review, reaffirms the Declaration of Commitment of 2001 and focuses on strong national action plans. NGOs can use the Declaration combined with the statements their country delegations made during this Review to hold their governments accountable.
The annual session of the Commission on the Status of Women was attended by Anneke Wensing.
WPF focused on advocating to counter the feminisation of HIV/AIDS, and issued a lobby paper for the purpose.

2005

Briefing cards developed by Family Care International on the relation between the Millennium development Goals and SRHR. WPF was one of the endorsers of these cards.
WPF formulated a letter to the ambassadors of the G8 countries in the Netherlands to urge them to bring the (Edinburgh) Declaration of the G8 International Parliamentarians’ Conference on Development in Africa 2005 - held in Edinburgh, Scotland - to the attention of their Head of State. The aim of the conference was to agree on concrete, realistic and measurable recommendations addressing the development needs of Africa, with a particular focus on HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health and rights, in the context of aid, trade, debt relief and conflict resolution. (See also Activities in the Netherlands)
From April 4-8, 2005 the United Nations Commission on Population and Development (CPD) held its 38th session in New York. The session focused on Population, Development, and HIV/AIDS, with a particular emphasis on poverty. WPF formulated a statement (since WPF has the ECOSOC status).
Letter to Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the UN, in which WPF and other NGOs urge him to include SRHR in his report on the MDGs for the General Assembly High-Level Plenary.