As part of the celebration of National Women's Month, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Philippines hosted "Breakfast for Her: A Partners' Dialogue", a meeting that brought together international partners to discuss how to advance the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action (#ICPD PoA) and to ensure that Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (#SRHR) remains a national priority, especially, now that the #Philippines is at the beginning of the implementation of its Development Plan and #UNFPA is preparing its new country programme.
Country Representative Dr. Leila Saiji Joudane explained what UNFPA does in the Philippines -- specifically, striving to achieve the three transformative results of ending unmet need for family planning, ending maternal deaths and ending gender-based violence and harmful practices against women and girls, including child marriage.
Dr. Joudane explained that during the demographic window of opportunity offered to the Philippines, the best investment for the country to become an upper middle income country (UMIC) is to invest in its human capital, especially young people and more specifically young girls. Ensuring women and youth empowerment, fulfilling their right to quality education, health and sexual and reproductive health and rights, comprehensive sexuality education, and decent work are all factors to be promoted in order to realize the demographic dividend, ensure sustainable development and achieve the Philippines' economic growth. She emphasised that this requires building consensus, creating new partnerships and strengthening existing ones, facilitating open dialogues, and co-creating ideas.
Participants recognized the importance of continuing the dialogue and tapping into their collective expertise to support the country achieving its ambition through people-centered policies.
