Dearest Partners,

 

First of all, please let me thank you for your continuous support and collaboration.

 

As you are aware, the Governments of the Republic of Kenya and the Kingdom of Denmark, together with UNFPA are convening the Nairobi Summit on ICPD25: Accelerating the Promise, which will take place from 12 to 14 November 2019 in Nairobi, Republic of Kenya. This Summit marks the 25^th anniversary of the adoption of the landmark Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) by 179 governments and other stakeholders in Cairo, Egypt, in 1994. The Summit, convened at the highest level, will bring together Member States of the United Nations, parliamentarians, local governments and authorities, international financial institutions, inter-governmental organizations, private sector partners and academia. It intends to galvanize change and mobilize leadership in addressing persistent and emerging challenges related to the ICPD Programme of Action. The Summit will also mobilize political and financial momentum to advance the ICPD agenda, as indispensable in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in particular around harnessing the demographic dividend, reducing (at a minimum) preventable maternal and child mortality, the unmet need for family planning and eliminating violence and harmful practices against women and girls.

 

The Summit will also offer an inclusive platform for Member States and a broad range of other stakeholders to support a set of global commitments that would collectively advance the ICPD agenda. These global commitments will be complemented by concrete and specific national commitments.

 

A set of global commitments were developed as a result of an elaborate process of consultations, within and among different constituencies, and reflects actions that would, collectively, advance the ICPD agenda and would finish the unfinished business, and also are directly linked to the Agenda 2030 and the SDGs. They are by no means final, but a first attempt to get a global dialogue going ahead of the Summit. But, it also gives a frame for national consultations with government counterparts and with the different constituencies and stakeholders, and it provides the first basis for countries and partners to start thinking about their own specific commitments towards these global commitments. At the Summit, it is expected that countries and partners will present their own commitments, ideally in line with the global commitments, on how they will advance the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action. This way, the global commitments, which are broad and aspirational in nature, will drive a national agenda to fulfill the promise of the ICPD.

 

It is important to stress that 'endorsing' the global commitments on the part of government and stakeholders is entirely voluntary, and thus not constitute a new set of obligations and reporting requirements. The set of global commitments is mostly derived directly from Agenda 2030 and the SDGs, as well as the ICPD Programme of Action, and therefore have already been agreed to by governments, to which they voluntarily report through ECOSOC.

 

With this writing I would like to share these global commitments for your feed-back and would be grateful to receive it by the end of August.

 

We would like to encourage our partners to use the draft Nairobi Commitments document as the basis for developing concrete national commitments and proposed actions to be presented by government in the Nairobi Summit, and stand ready to assist in facilitating this important process in September. 

 

With repeated thanks and best regards,

 

Lela