On December 9 and 10 CHOICE took part in a meeting organized by UNFPA in Istanbul, Turkey. UNFPA is organizing an operational review on the progress that has been made since the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development.
Civil society, including young people, needs to be meaningfully involved in this process, and therefore CHOICE was invited to come to Istanbul and discuss it. Partnerships officer Paulien represented CHOICE, taking part in the discussions and specifically focusing on meaningful youth participation in the process towards 2014.
Though the meeting focused on the technical review process, the group also discussed a number of other developments. There are lots of things happening already, for example the Rio+20 summit of 2012 and the end of the implementation period of the Millennium Development Goals in 2015. To what extent can or should the ICPD process be integrated with these processes? And how can youth be meaningfully involved on all levels, including on the national and regional level?
These and other questions came up during the meeting, and though this is still a continuing process, CHOICE is very inspired to remain involved in the process of ICPD beyond 2014, ensuring youth SRHR worldwide!
