Government officials, civil society organizations, development experts and academics from across the Caribbean will meet in Georgetown Guyana, July 9-11 to assess the impact of the Plan of Action emanating from the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo, Egypt, 20 years ago on the lives of people in the Caribbean. They will also be seeking to identify future priorities for action in the post 2015 era.
The report summarizing the results of an extensive survey on the ICPD progress and challenges carried out among Caribbean countries will be launched at the meeting. Participants will discuss future policy directions based on the report’s findings. D elegates will also discuss selected population, migration and development challenges that the Caribbean faces.
The Guyana review meeting is the 4th and final in a series of five year review exercises to assess the achievements and constraints to achieving the internationally agreed targets for poverty reduction. Next year also marks the final milestone of the ICPD PoA. Development stakeholders are eager to ensure that key tenets related to reproductive rights and sexual and reproductive health are placed at the centre of governments’ development agenda in the post 2015 era. They also want to ensure that the voice of the Caribbean is reflected in the final decisions regarding actions to be taken to deliver a more equitable and sustainable world for all.
The meeting is a precursor to the broader Latin American and Caribbean Regional Conference on Population and Development to be held in Montevideo, Uruguay in August 2013. As such, at the end of the two-day meeting, delegates will be seeking to develop and agree on a comprehensive and reliable account of the state of population and development in the Caribbean for presentation at that regional forum.
The meeting is being organized by ECLAC, CARICOM and the Government of Guyana with support from UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.
The media are invited to cover the Caribbean Forum on Population, Development and Migration, which will be opened on 9 July at 8.30 a.m., in the Guyana International Conference Centre
