Health Secretary Enrique Ona will share the stage with UNFPA Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin and Ms. Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, when he presents the Philippine government’s family planning programme during the Women Deliver 2013 Conference happening May 28-30 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

On the second day of the conference, Dr. Ona will be one of the panel speakers in the morning plenary session “Global Progress on Family Planning – Putting Women at the Heart of the Global Health Agenda,” with Dr. Osotimehin and Ms. Gates.

The session will focus on Family Planning 2020 (FP2020), which was pushed during the London Summit on Family Planning in July 2012, where the global community came together and delivered bold commitments to help girls and women in developing countries access lifesaving contraceptives.

Joining Dr. Ona in the panel are Senegal’s Health Minister Awa Coll-Seck, Malawi’s national coordinator for Safe Motherhood Presidential Initiative Dorothy Ngoma, Zambia’s First Lady Christine Kaseba Sata and Indonesia’s Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi. A three-minute video on the Philippines’ landmark reproductive health legislation will be shown during the session.

The Philippine delegation includes Sen. Pia Cayetano, principal author of the RH Law in the Philippine Senate, officials from the Department of Health, and leaders from civil society organizations.

UNFPA is playing an active role in and around this year’s Women Deliver 2013 Conference, the third such global conference since 2007. More than 5,000 participants from ministries of health, finance and development cooperation, parliaments, leading civil society organizations, global companies, media and more – are expected to attend the conference, whose aim is to inspire and inform efforts to build a better world for girls and women.

During and in the lead-up to Women Deliver, UNFPA is highlighting key priorities: supporting adolescents and youth, protecting reproductive health, widening access to family planning, empowering teenage girls and ensuring that the principles in the Cairo Programme of Action remain at the core of future development agenda.