6th Annual Parliamentarians’ Summit on "Balancing the Scales of Women’s Lives in the Countdown to 2015", Ottawa, Canada, June 10th-11 2010

Two weeks prior to the G8 and G20 Meetings in Canada, the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (EPF) in co-operation with the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), the Forum of African and Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development (FAAPPD) and the Inter-American Parliamentary Group (IAPG) brought over 40 Parliamentarians to the Sixth Annual Summit “Balancing the Scales of Women’s Lives in the Countdown to 2015". The event hosted by Hon. Raymonde Folco, MP, Chair of the Canadian Association of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (CAPPD)  in close cooperation with the Parliamentary Centre addressed MDG targets which have not yet been achieved and specifically examined the theme of Women and Development, based on goals 1, 5 and 6, which deal with the reduction of extreme poverty and hunger, with a specific focus on maternal health, and combating HIV/Aids and other diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis.

Approximately 150 participants took part at the Summit including international and civil society organizations, indigenous organizations from Latin American and the Caribbean and representatives of Canada’s First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples.

During the Session 4 - "Dialogue with Donor Countries: How reproductive Health and Family Planning Help Meet all the MDGs, Parliamentarians expressed their views on how to overcome obstacles in policies and funding in the Final Countdown to 2015 and ensuring that the Health MDGs are met.

"Ensuring the coordination with the Governments from the Global South and the dialogue with fellow Parliamentarians and regional Parliamentary Associations will make aid more efficient and targeted", said Hon. Henriette Martinez, MP, France. Baroness Tonge from United Kingdom informed participants that the Maternal and Child Health is the development priority of the UK Government this year. "It is cruel and immoral to prevent women from access to reproductive health and family planning" she said. Hon. Eleni Theocharous, MEP (Cyprus) said that ensuring obligatory blood testing for HIV/AIDS for all in Sub-Saharan Africa would help reduce the pandemic.

Hon. George Tsereteli, MP from Georgia and EPF Vice-President chaired the Session on Best Practices and MDGs from all over the world, where European Representative, Hon. Birute Vesaite, MP Lithuania discussed the necessity of meeting the needs of young people.

Parliamentarians concluded with adopting the Parliamentary Appeal to G8/G20 Heads of State and Governments. Among others, Parliamentarians called on "pooling new funding in a total of 24 billions under an international funding mechanism, specifically for MDG 5, which will provide targeted assistance for sexual and reproductive health and rights, family planning and access to safe abortion, when and where its legal and therapeutic abortion".

 The Appeal was later on submitted to Canada’s Prime Minister, The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, host of the 2010 Heads of State Summits . 

For more information about 6th Annual Parliamentarians’ Summit on "Balancing the Scales of Women’s Lives in the Countdown to 2015", contact Saskia Pfeijffer at saskia@iepfpd.org or Marina Davidashvili at: marina@iepfpd.org