Diego Palacios: Post-2015 agenda 'more about partnerships'

Women and girls at a clinic that provides reproductive health and family planning services in Vietnam. Photo by: Doan Bau Chau / UNFPA

How will the development process play out after the expiry of the Millennium Development Goals in 2015? That’s the question on everyone’s mind, and a top official from the U.N. Population Fund has his own prediction.

Diego Palacios, Executive Coordinator for the Post-2015 Development Agenda at UNFPA, believes the process “will not be an issue between donors and recipient countries, but more about partnerships,” and this means a stronger role for the private sector.

Palacios spoke to Devex on May 9 at the G8/G20 Parliamentarians’ Conference in London, where he had earlier discussed why family planning and reproductive health lost out in the MDGs in 2000. This time around, however, Palacios was “optimistic” that there was a place for the social sectors — including sexual and reproductive health rights — in the new agenda. Their absence, he warned, would represent a “missed opportunity.” The UNFPA official was also keen to point out the rights of women and adolescents as key factors in “addressing the challenges of population dynamics.”

Here are some excerpts from our conversation with Palacios in the U.K. Houses of Parliament:

Is family planning first and foremost a tool for population control and climate change mitigation, or is it a tool for empowering women?

It’s the latter. Certainly at UNFPA we see that family planning is a measure to expand people’s choices and strengthen their rights. I don’t think that anybody will accept today that family planning is a population control measure — that’s not the case. We really think that if you work to expand the rights of women and adolescents, you will certainly be addressing the challenges of population dynamics in terms of growth, lack of growth, migration, urbanization, etc. At UNFPA, we see family planning and sexual and reproductive health as a fundamental right for development.

In terms of the post-2015 agenda, many NGOs are concerned about the lack of sexual and reproductive health rights in the drafts currently circulating — is there still time for the EU Council and others to sharpen the language around women’s and girl’s rights and universal access to family planning?

Certainly. We shared that concern that because of the broadness of the post-2015 agenda some basic fundamental issues are not being properly reflected. It’s not that they’re not there – it’s that they’re not properly highlighted. The issue of women, adolescents and young people’s rights is fundamental. We need to ensure that the new agenda has a rights perspective. Of course, it has to be people-centered and among those groups that perhaps need more specific attention — women and adolescents are vital for the future.

How confident are you that you, or others, will be able to frame or re-frame the debate to secure a place at the top table at the G8 meeting in June for the social sectors?

We certainly cannot expect that UNFPA or others will be reflecting these specific agendas, but of course we need to remind ourselves about the role that we have as UN agencies, the commitments of the governments, of the world in general […] Our role is basically to ensure that these commitments are considered in these discussions and later on — and this is an intergovernmental process — it will be up to the countries to develop the new agenda. But of course if we this time forget about the rights of women and adolescents to really have control over their bodies, their decisions in terms of reproduction, it would really be a missed opportunity.

Do you think that we can achieve a global consensus, and to what extent do you think that the process currently being embarked upon is a case of watered down expectation? Do you think that a list of concrete, achievable and yet still ambitious goals can be agreed?

I’m very confident that we’ll be able to do it. It was possible in 1994 — and I think many countries are now supporting these issues through legislation and health systems. So I don’t see any real reason for not being able to reflect these issues in the next agenda.

Given the funding gap — estimated at $4 billion worldwide — in unmet needs for family planning and sexual and reproductive health rights, coupled with the austerity measures that we’re seeing in Europe and elsewhere at this time, can other actors fill the void and bridge the shortfall in this area? Is there more of a role for philanthropic organizations or the private sector to pick up the slack?

I think that is a major challenge […] I expect that many of the donor countries that are supporting these issues will continue to support them in spite of the difficult budgetary situations. We’ve seen that at least the contributions for UNFPA have been maintained. Donors will certainly be motivated to continue supporting this area, but also I would have to recognize that developing countries are increasingly also considering investments. So perhaps not enough to close the gap, but certainly we’re seeing an increasing trend. And we’ll also expect the governments of the developing countries to make more efforts in the future.

Perhaps the new agenda will not be an issue between donors and recipient countries, but more about partnerships. If the agenda reflects the priorities for the world, I think that these partnerships will have to work even at the financial level. The private sector as well — I think increasingly the private sector is interested in social issues as part of their social responsibility. And of course, we’d like to see the private sector become more involved in this process.

I’m an optimist — and certainly we need to begin in a positive way because otherwise we will be self-defeating.

And what’s the major hidden issue for the development community that will emerge throughout the process and in the coming years?

For me, the issues concerning adolescents and young people are very critical. We cannot think of a post-2015 agenda that does not consider the next generation, providing them and ensuring them the capacity to make choices to be empowered. For developing countries, that really also links to the issue of the demographic dividend. You are only able to cash in that dividend as a country, if you invest in adolescents and young people – to enable them to take decisions and allow them to access sexual and reproductive health services. For me that’s a key issue.

So that access is a right and not a privilege?

It’s a right and, well, although now it’s a privilege for some, it should be a right for everybody.

Sumber: Internasional Development

Richard Jones