Tag: Baroness Verma

Below is the text of the speech made by Baroness Verma, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for International Development, at the UN in New York on 23 February 2016.

Thank you Mr President, I’m delighted to be here to talk to you today.

Today’s discussion comes at an opportune moment. There are real reasons to be optimistic – 2015 saw agreement of a series of ambitious universal deals – financing, climate and the Global Goals. The UK takes these universal commitments seriously, domestically and internationally and is committed to playing its part to make sure these are achieved.

Against that optimism, we are faced with so many protracted crises; in Syria, in Yemen, in South Sudan. At their heart are conflict and instability. So it’s clear that if we’re to achieve Agenda 2030, and live up to our promise to leave no one behind, we need to do more to prevent conflict and build, resilient, peaceful societies.

It is so often the poorest people who are most vulnerable to crises and who are further impoverished when stability and security breaks down. The statistics back this up; conflict-affected states were the most off-track in achieving the MDGs.

Approximately half of the global poor live in countries affected by conflict and violence. So it’s clear that we can’t look at peace, development and humanitarian issues in isolation. The 3 are inherently interlinked. To fail on one, is to undermine progress on the others.

The United Kingdom has made it a priority to improve our efforts on these three strands.

In addition to our commitment to 0.7%, we are one of the few Council Members to believe that the Security Council has a role to play in preventing future conflicts, and not just ending those that are ongoing. That’s why our Secretary of State for Development chaired the Council last November; the first time a Development Minister has done so. It’s also why we co-hosted the London Conference for Syria and the Region earlier this month, where we and others worked hard to better integrate these three issues through the Conference outcomes.

The UN’s mandate means it operates at the nexus between peace, development and humanitarian. And if we are to succeed, whether in Syria or elsewhere, the UN should be at the centre of our efforts.

When I talk about integrating humanitarian, peace and development work it of course includes the UN’s work on security, human rights and international law too.

The Secretary-General’s response to Agenda 2030, the Human Rights Up Front Initiative, the ECOSOC dialogue and yesterday’s meetings, have all firmly acknowledged the need for strong progress by the UN in this area.

This year, we have a real opportunity to make that progress. The World Humanitarian Summit, the Secretary-General and World Bank’s Migration and Refugees Summits, the ECOSOC dialogue and negotiation of the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review can all help ensure the UN is ready to play this central role.

I believe there are 3 issues that need to be addressed as part of this process.

First, the UN needs to manage protracted crises more effectively. The UN’s engagement in peacekeeping and political negotiation in many of the world’s more difficult conflicts is strongly valued. But the UN has to overcome operational and funding silos to be able to achieve lasting political solutions, longer term peacebuilding and development. The humanitarian and development parts of the UN need to work more effectively together.

Second, the UN needs to act earlier to prevent conflict and to balance a better approach to crises with action to address the underlying causes of fragility and conflict. This means being a smoke alarm as well as a fire extinguisher; and really prioritising conflict prevention as much as resolution. It also means investing in support to help build institutions, improve governance and the rule of law – the golden thread that will support economies to thrive and grow.

Thirdly, the UN needs a much more variable, flexible footprint, focusing where help is most needed, on the most vulnerable and marginalised including women and girls, and where the UN’s unique legitimacy as a universal body most equips it to make a difference, with the ability to surge to meet a sudden need or respond quickly to an emerging crisis.

It’s very easy to talk in generalities, so I’d also like to set out some thoughts on what is needed in practical terms. I think it requires change in 3 areas: fully implementing Delivering as One; leadership; and funding.

Delivering as One has made progress, as I have seen for myself in the countries I’ve visited, but not yet enough. There is strong and growing demand for Delivering as One and it is proving it can enable a more effective UN voice. We need to see its full implementation, by all entities, including the Standard Operating Procedures and the Management and Accountability Framework. We’d also like to explore ways to ensure more coordinated planning, budgeting and risk assessment, between the UN’s development, humanitarian and peacebuilding support.

Delivering as One goes hand in hand with effective leadership: resident and humanitarian coordinators, often the heads of the UN in country, must be individuals that can deliver strong leadership that responds to both short and longer-term needs. They also require better support from the UN system: clearer authority to draw on all assets of the UN system in support of national priorities, sustained funding through contributions of all entities and more dedicated advisory support, building on the success of the peace and development advisers.

Let me now turn to my third point; funding. I have already spoken about the need focus on long-term conflict and crisis prevention and bring all the sources of funding onto the same page to ensure the most strategic allocation. There is a need to increase flexibility between allocations to humanitarian, peace and development funds. And there is a need to attract new forms of finance into the system, including potential private sector investment, becomes ever more acute.

Mr Vice President, through these steps and more, we have the chance to use the links among peace, development and humanitarian issues to our advantage. Instead of instability hampering development, let us build on stability to advance it.

The real test will be delivery at country level, and improvements to the quality of lives for people on the frontline – so the focus on Delivering as One, strengthening the Resident Coordinator system and underpinning frameworks is absolutely critical. But this will also require working back up the chain to headquarters with effective leadership from the executive and Member States to change procedures and incentives to support joint working, better delivery and better outcomes.

We have some ideas, but don’t have all the answers – I hope today’s discussions can help us start to formulate some of them.

Once again, thank you for the opportunity to speak and thank you for listening Mr President and distinguished delegates.

Below is the text of the speech made by Baroness Verma, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for International Development, at 1 Parliament Street, Westminster, London on 9 February 2016.

Thank you very much. It really gives me great pleasure to be here. I really want to start by thanking the All Party Parliamentary Group on Education for All. I also have to thank you, Mark [Mark Williams MP – Chair of the APPG for Global Education for All], for this really insightful introduction because it is really about going there [to Kenya] and having a look at what is working on the ground. It really gives us a sense of how what we are doing in the UK impacts positively the lives of people on the ground.

I am also delighted to sit next to my colleagues from the House of Lords – Lord Low and other colleagues I have known for many years, so I am really pleased. And of course as I look across the room, I see many faces that are very familiar and I am pleased that civil society partners are always with us and working hard. These are the partnerships which do develop a real thinking and allow us to make sure that what we are delivering on the ground actually does work. And also, the challenges you rightly bring to us. We do need the challenges so that we can do much better in delivering the services from DFID.

Last year was a really crucial year for everybody who is committed to disability inclusion. As you know, people with disabilities in the past have been unable to benefit from much of the programmes we had globally on tackling poverty. For all of us, seeing disability mentioned in the global development agenda for the first time was an extraordinary moment and no Global Goal, I am so glad, will be considered met unless it is achieved for everyone. And that should really mean everyone. This for me was a major step forward for insuring that those currently left behind, including people with disabilities, are equally benefiting from international development. I would like to use this opportunity to thank all of you in the room who have worked so hard in the last years to make this possible.

At DFID we have pushed for disability to be at the heart of all our programmes and everyone who has worked with DFID has hopefully been a testimony to that. We have learned a lot since the launch of the first Disability Framework in 2014 and the revised Framework of 2015 confirms our vision that people with disabilities need to be put at the heart of our work, which includes our commitment to secure education for everyone.

Education is one of the most crucial instruments a country can make in its people and the country’s future. It is a critical driver in reducing poverty and the importance of making education inclusive of children with disabilities cannot be overstated. It does not only play a central role in fostering development, but also breaks the stigma and discrimination and allows people with disabilities to gain agency over their own lives. Leaving no one behind is not only essential for sustainable development and eradicating poverty, but – and I hope we all agree – for the freedom, dignity, tolerance and respect that all human beings should see as a right. These are fundamental to our all humanity. That is why we are committed to ensuring that all children, including those with disabilities, are able to complete a full cycle of education.

In the last three years, we have invested nearly £35 million in education in Kenya to improve early learning, enhance transparency and drive up enrolment and retention so that Kenya’s poorest and most marginalised children, including those with disabilities, are reached. In 2014 we made the commitment that all DFID-funded educational related construction is fully accessible. In Kenya, this meant that by August 15th, 24 new and renovated classrooms, 12 dormitories and 24 latrine blocks directly funded by DFID were fully accessible for people with disabilities.

I think the basics of having latrines for children with disabilities can sometimes be overlooked. I recently visited another country where I saw latrines developed and when I asked, “What about for those children with disabilities?” they looked at me and said, “We don’t have any children with disability”. I think this is the stigma and taboo we really need to challenge hard. Our Girls Education Programme has undergone an analysis of how well our projects are targeting girls with disabilities. My Department has provided £7 million to fund disability-funded girls’ education programmes in Kenya, Uganda and Sierra Leone. In Kenya, our partner Leonard Cheshire Disability is working with policy makers, research institutions, teachers and community members to address the key barriers faced by disabled girls in accessing schools.

On a global level, we are working closely with the Global Partnership for Education to ensure that their approach of children with disabilities is inclusive. Our influencing efforts made disability a priority for the June 2015 replenishment of the Global Partnership and it was a great success to see that twelve countries, including Kenya, pledged at this event that they would do more for children with disabilities.

However, we do know that despite these successes, so much more has to be done. And reports like the one you are launching today are crucial reminders that there is still a very long way to go. The study confirms that too many children with disabilities are out of school – 1 out of 6 in Kenya. In light of this, I would like to thank the All Parliamentary Group for Education, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the Global Campaign for Education UK, RESULTS UK and Leonard Cheshire Disability for supporting this very important report. One thing which has been clear is that none of this will be easy and it will require a concerted action by governments, citizens, civil society and by business. I am convinced that we are moving in the right direction with the work we have done so far. We at DFID are doing more than we have ever before on disability inclusion and together with the organisations in this room today and beyond, we can really do much to contribute to a better future for people with disabilities all over the world. That is a way of making sure that we speak to the pledges we made to leaving no one behind.

Thank you very much.

Below is the text of the speech made by Baroness Verma, the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, in Hyderabad, India on 6 September 2013.

Good Morning. I would like to thank the VC and faculty members of NALSAR for extending me a very warm welcome. I am, of course, delighted to be here. The UK government is committed to broadening, deepening and strengthening our partnerships on education. That means building stronger and deeper links between the best institutions in India, like this one, and the best institutions in the UK, and encouraging the brightest students to study in the UK. I was pleased to hear from your Vice Chancellor that NALSAR already has several collaborations with UK universities- I am certain that this will only deepen with the presence of the British Deputy High Commission here.

The UK India Education and Research Initiative has supported over 1,000 partnerships between UK and Indian institutions. Last year we saw over 150 institutions undertaking joint research and programme delivery, including research partnerships, study missions, staff and student exchanges, policy dialogues and networking events. I know that NALSAR has worked closely with UKIERI through the Higher Education Leadership Development Programme and I am certain that we can deepen that collaboration in the future.

Today I want to take this opportunity to address three key issues:

– The double challenge of climate change and population growth;

– The importance of resource efficiency to global competitiveness and economically resilience; and

– The need to involve women and all parts of society in decision making around economic development and future energy generation

On the first of these – climate change – this is one of the greatest challenges facing the world today. Earlier this year, carbon dioxide briefly reached 400 parts per million in the atmosphere – 40% higher than before the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century and most likely higher than at any point in the last 3 million years.

Extreme weather events, such as the devastating floods in Uttarakhand earlier this year, are happening with increasing frequency. Global weather patterns, including the Indian monsoon, are changing in ways we cannot confidently predict.

The scientific evidence is solid and accepted by pretty much every government on earth. If we are to prevent the most devastating impacts of climate change, if we are to keep global temperature rises to below 2°C, we need to lower emissions of greenhouse gases on a global scale – effectively decarbonising the way our societies function.

And we need to do this at a time when we are living through an age of global growth and development. The UN estimates that by 2040, the world’s population is likely to be around nine billion people. India, currently home to 1.25 billion people, will soon have the largest population in the world. By 2040, India’s population could be approaching 1.6 billion.

The good news is that more and more people will enter the middle class. This means that more Indians than ever before will be able to afford air conditioners, televisions, computers, motorbikes and cars. This rise in prosperity is a colossal achievement;lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, improving the welfare and life opportunities of a whole generation,is a wonderful thing and should be celebrated.

At the same time, it also presents a challenge. How to provide the increased energy required by a growing and prospering India, without gambling with the lives and livelihoods of millions of people by increasing the risks of the most severe impacts of climate change.

There are those that say you can’t address both: that it is a myth. That it can’t be done. They say that reducing emissions means limiting economic growth. That caring for the environment means leaving millions in poverty. That resource-efficiency means having to limit the aspirations of hundreds of millions of young people. That a green economy is a brake on competitiveness for India as a whole.

That view is out of date.

Which brings me to my second issue – the importance of resource efficiency. In the twenty first century resource efficiency is not an optional extra for businesses, but an indispensable part of being globally competitive and economically resilient. Not only can genuinely sustainable development be affordable. If done right, it can actually compete – and win – against the old economy alternative.

In addition, by becoming more energy efficient, and using more indigenous renewable energy, countries which are net importers of energy, such as the UK and India, can potentially reduce their reliance on imports and volatile global energy markets.

To give just one example, in the UK we have ambitious plans to roll out smart meters to every household. These communicate electricity use by households to the supplier on a real time basis and will allow households to manage their electricity use more effectively, for example taking advantage of lower electricity prices at different times of day, or even sell power back to the grid. It will spur a whole new market for energy efficient appliances, technologies and business models to take advantage of the new, ‘smart’, grid.

The Indian government and Indian businesses also understand that efficient low-carbon development can be the foundation of a successful globally-competitive economy. Your government has developed and implemented a host of policies which tackle this challenge head on:

The National Action Plan on Climate Change, with its missions on solar power and energy efficiency;

State action plans on climate change, which mandate action at the state level,

And a host of other policies and initiatives around renewable energy, off-grid clean energy, smart grids and new technologies.
And Indian businesses have understood this for years. It is the essence of the Indian tradition of ‘frugal development’ which makes some Indian industries amongst the most resource efficient in the world.

In the UK we have made a commitment to cut carbon emissions by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050. And we have made this commitment legally binding through the 2008 Climate Change Act – the first comprehensive economy-wide climate legislation of its kind.

I want to take this opportunity, given I am standing in front of a room full of people who know a lot about the law, to encourage you to think about the importance of legislation in this whole equation. In the UK, we couldn’t have come so far without the political consensus embodied in the Climate Change Act. It changed the nature of the whole domestic debate: from should we tackle climate change to how and in what sequence we should tackle it. It has given industry and policy-makers the certainty to make medium and long term decisions.

GLOBE – the UK-based international NGO which works on climate change legislation – publishes a study every year, setting out different legislation across their member countries. This year it looks at 33 countries – India and the UK included. I will share a copy with Professor (Dr) Faizan Mustafa, Vice Chancellor.

I know that the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly is also taking a real interest in this issue. The Deputy High Commission team is working closely with the Speaker of the Assembly and the Assembly’s environmental committee to share our own experience. So I would urge you here at state and national level to give real thought to how you can use such legislation to back up your own actions to tackle climate change.

Now, back to the UK’s own legislation.To achieve the 80% target we have committed to internationally, we have been taking action on three fronts: saving energy; reforming our electricity market; and encouraging new solutions.

We plan to cut our energy use by between a third and half by 2050 – much of which will be achieved through improved building efficiency. Later today I am visiting the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Green Business Centre, which is housed in a green building, which, in 2003 was first building outside the US and only the third in the world, to receive the prestigious Platinum Rating for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Quite possibly some of the design innovations and technologies I will see could be used to help improve energy efficiency in buildings in the UK.

The UK’s Energy Bill, which is currently going through parliament, will also provide a competitive energy market where low-carbon technologies participate on a level playing field.

And finally, we are investing in research and development both in the UK, and in research partnerships with countries like India. UK-India research collaboration has grown from £1 million in 2008 to over £100 million now. Much of this research is in the energy field, in sectors like sustainable bioenergy, solar and nuclear power and smart grids and energy storage. Because, quite simply, the UK won’t meet its low carbon targets with current technologies at current costs.

All well and good, but, to my third issue,what has the global challenge of climate change got to do with empowering women?

For a start, both are amongst the top priorities of the UK Government.

Indeed, British Prime Minister David Cameron not only committed to making his administration the “greenest government ever” but has also committed to building a fair and equal society.

The well-being of women and children has been placed at the centre of the UK Government’s international aid policy.

In 2010 we published the first ever UK Equality Strategy which gives a commitment to building a strong economy and a fairer society.We have established the Women’s Business Council to ensure that the government gets the best advice on how to ensure that women can fulfill their full potential and also achieve economic growth.

But more needs to be done, in the UK, and in India. Not only is it morally right to give women the same opportunities as men in order to fulfill their potential – but it is also economically smart. As Prime Minster David Cameron, has said, “where the potential and perspective of women are locked out of the decisions that shape a society, that society remains stunted and underachieving”.

Decisions about how our economies develop and how we generate the energy to support them are among the decisions that shape our society. And the fact is that all too often women are locked out of those decisions.

Worldwide the energy sector workforce is overwhelmingly male dominated. In the UK, the proportion of women in the energy sector workforce is approximately 23%, compared to 50% across the workforce as a whole. The gender divide is even more pronounced in the upstream oil and gas sector.

I spoke to a range of impressive senior women working in the energy and climate change space in Delhi on Thursday evening. They confirmed that they too face many of these issues here in India.

We have some shining examples of female leaders in the energy sector in the UK, such as Juliet Davenport the CEO of Good Energy, a renewable electricity supplier, Ann Robinson Director of USwitch, a consumer group, and Sarah Butler-Sloss, Founder Director of the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, a charity encouraging increased local sustainable energy. But unfortunately they are still the exception.

Why does this matter?

It matters because if we are to successfully tackle the challenges I have outlined above, we need to ensure we use all tools at our disposal. Encouraging more women into the energy sector will bring fresh perspectives, talent, better decisions and broader experience.

But it’s not just about bringing more women into energy sector workplaces. It is also about how changes in the energy sector can actually help empower women.

3 billion people around the world have no access to modern cooking fuels. They depend mostly on direct burning of solid biomass such as wood and animal dung for cooking and heating. The smoke from these rudimentary stoves cause about 4 million deaths annually, destroy millions of tonnes of crops and also lead to global warming and large scale regional climate change.

Women and children, particularly girls, are disproportionately affected by the indoor air pollution caused by the stoves. They also bear the burden of drudgery collecting fuel, a task which can often take 4-5 hours a day – time which could otherwise be spent on educational, economic and other opportunities.

The Indian government is taking action. The National Biomass Cookstoves Initiative (NBCI) was launched by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in December 2009 to provide improved cookstoves which directly address health concerns and welfare concerns of the weakest and most vulnerable sections of society.

The UK’s Department for International Development is working with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

The aim of the TERI project is to have improved cookstoves delivered and being used by 100,000 households, and to have created Technology Resource Centres serving an estimated 400,000 households adopting solar lighting systems in India. As a result, a total of 500,000 poor women will benefit from lower health risks from indoor air pollution and reduced drudgery, and 2.5 million people will benefit from new or sustained access to modern, clean energy either for cooking or lighting needs. In addition, TERI plans to contribute new research and evidence to national or state-level policies in the area of sustainable development.

As part of the project TERI works closely with women both in their capacity as direct beneficiaries and, by developing new, sustainable business models, as economic actors in the supply chain. TERI has incubated women’s organisations as Energy Enterprises which provide after sales services for the cookstoves. It is also helping women to start up sustainable businesses by providing support to them to open bank accounts and providing training in social marketing and technical servicing.

Similarly, women candidates are given priority for selection as village level entrepreneurs under TERI’s Lighting a Billion Lives programme – which supports the establishment of micro solar enterprises to provide high-quality and cost effective solar lamps in un-electrified or poorly electrified villages.

This is not about hand outs. It is about supporting the development of sustainable business models that empower women and provide clean energy and lighting.

And it works. In Uttar Pradesh, more than 175 solar charging stations are now being operated by women entrepreneurs. 100 are operated and maintained by women self-help groups, while 75 are operated by further marginalized sections of the society such as handicapped women, widows and dalits. In Bihar, TERI has created energy enterprises to extend after sales service to more than 1,000 women self-help groups.

Earlier this week I visited some of those villages in UP where TERI has been working. I was able to see some remarkable women entrepreneurs who have transformed their lives by developing successful and sustainable business models in the energy sector.

I was struck by the enormous the impact such simple yet innovative technologies and business models can have on the lives of the women using them, and their families. But there is still scope for even more innovation here – particularly around how to develop the financial products and legal frameworks to help women access very small scale financing needed to adopt these products.

So it’s not all just about the engineering. You lawyers have a role to play here too.

We know that when a woman generates her own income she re-invests 90% of it in her family and community. And we know that in India, the states with more women in work have seen faster economic growth and the largest reductions in poverty. So empowering women economically makes sense for both local communities and national economies.

It is also essential if we are going to tackle the challenge of powering the economies of the future in a sustainable way. We simply can’t afford to overlook half the population as we search for solutions. We need more women in the energy business. In order to achieve this we need to provide them with access to finance, technology, and quality education and training.

So, in conclusion, I have talked about the twin challenges of climate change and population growth. I have also discussed why resource efficiency is not only key to tackling these challenges, but is also central to global competitiveness and economically resilience.

Finally, I highlighted the need to involve women in the decision making process. Because if we fail to, not only will be perpetuating a system that is inherently unfair and wrong, we will also be missing out on the new ideas, fresh perspectives and entrepreneurial talents of half of society. By doing so, we would make tackling the climate change and energy challenge a lot harder.

I will conclude with one question to you- once you have left this room, what is the one thing that you will do to address these issues that I have outlined to you- what is the one thing that will do to make this world a better place for your future generations?

Thank you.

Below is the text of the speech made by Baroness Verma, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for International Development, in Bali on 25 January 2016.

I would like to thank our hosts for inviting me, my fellow honourable Ministers and all conference participants for listening to my words today.

The UK has put girls and women at the front and centre of our international development work.

We believe it’s a matter of basic human rights.

Giving girls and women a choice

Girls’ and women’s right to have control over their own bodies…to have a voice in their community and country…to live a life free of violence and the fear of violence…to choose who to marry and when…their right to be in education … to determine whether and when to have children and how many to have and their right to work, earn money and build the future they want.

But gender equality is also also critical to wider development goals…no country can truly develop if it leaves half its population behind.

We know that when girls stay in school for just one extra year of primary school they can boost their eventual wages by up to twenty per cent.

And when women get extra earnings, we know they then reinvest that back into their families and back into their communities.

McKinsey estimate that if women in every country played an identical role in markets to men…as much as twenty eight trillion dollars would be added to the global economy by 2025.

The same research finds that if every nation only matched the progress of its fastest-improving neighbour, it would add twelve trillion dollars to the global economy.

Investing in girls and women is the right thing to do…it’s also one of the very best investments we can make.

Sexual and reproductive health and rights are absolutely fundamental to this. When women have multiple, unintended pregnancies and births – when they face a high risk of dying in childbirth and when they are unable to decide for themselves whether, when and how many children to have, they are also unable to participate fully in education and employment.

We know rights-based family planning enables a girl to avoid a life trajectory of early, frequent and risky pregnancies, and instead complete her education and take up better economic opportunities.

These are the essential elements of the demographic transition, the shift from high fertility and mortality to far fewer births and deaths, the shift that ensures investments in gender equality, in education and in training and jobs can be converted into the demographic dividend of higher economic growth and prosperity for all. We’ve seen these policies and process in action in countries across East Asia particularly. We’re ready to support countries in Africa who choose this path.

Getting back on track

A lot of progress has been made. But we are not yet on-track to reach the FP2020 goal we all committed to in 2012 at the London Summit. We are failing to reach adolescent girls and young women who want to use family planning. We are failing to reach the poorest. We are failing to meet the reproductive health needs of women and girls in conflict.

We are failing to change social norms about family planning so that women’s and girls’ rights and their ability to control their own fertility become an ordinary part of life for communities everywhere. These are the changes that will be truly transformational.

We have come together here in Bali because we are all committed to change. There is much more we all need to do to deliver on the commitments in 2012. If we act now, we can still reach this goal and be on course for universal access by 2030.

That means truly prioritising family planning . It means budgeting for it, finding the funds for the contraceptives and tackling head-on the discrimination that prevents young people, especially unmarried women and girls, from getting the services they need. It means changing attitudes and social norms so that it is the uncut girl who finishes her education before marriage is valued. It means demonstrating our support publically, encouraging others to do the same and making sure that access to safe and affordable contraception becomes a normal part of life for everyone.

The UK’s role

The UK will play our part. Our Government is fully committed to the goal of family planning for all who want it. We will deliver on the ambitious commitment of our Prime Minister. By 2020 this will result in 24 million additional women and girls using modern voluntary contraception. The numbers are important – this is an ambitious agenda. But we also need to ensure that no-one is left behind – and here we explicitly mean adolescents and women and girls living through humanitarian crises.

That’s why DFID is challenging itself to find innovative ways to meet the family planning needs of young people, including adolescents. And why, in humanitarian crises, DFID’s calls for proposals will now require the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls to be considered. The UK commitment to the renewed Every Woman Every Child Strategy, launched at the UN in September, puts these issues at the heart of our vision for the sector to 2030. We remain committed to supporting progress across the continuum of care, prioritising maternal and newborn health, and addressing HIV, particularly for key populations.

The UK is very clear – access to voluntary modern contraception is a crucial part of wider sexual and reproductive health and rights – as agreed by the world in Cairo in 1994 and its subsequent reviews. I am therefore proud that the UK government is also a strong voice on the more difficult issues. Access to safe abortion, for example, reduces recourse to unsafe abortion and saves maternal lives. We need the courage to do what the evidence tells us women and girls still need.

Increasing access to affordable, quality female and male condoms to young people is also critical in order to provide dual protection against unwanted pregnancy as well as HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

I am proud that the UK has led the way in supporting the Africa-led movement to end FGM. Ending FGM and ending child marriage are fundamental to girls and women being able to control what happens to their own bodies –and their own lives. The Girl Summit in 2014 in London was a watershed moment which broke the silence on these sensitive and taboo issues. No girl should live with the fear of being cut, the fear of being married too young, the fear of carrying a child too young, the fear of giving birth when her body is not ready, the fear of the potential risks of this – of haemorrhage, of being left with a leaky bladder thanks to obstetric fistula, the real risk of dying.

We need to act now

We have a big job ahead of us, but if we step up our collective efforts we can succeed. There are 225 million women and girls who want to use modern contraception and can’t get it. This is a staggering number – yet we know what needs to be done. We need clarity of purpose, everyone needs to focus and get on with it. This is fundamental. We must not fail these millions and millions of women and girls. We cannot fail them. A block on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls is a block on economic development across the board.

But we do need to act now. We have a narrow window to get back on track with FP2020 goals. We also have a tremendous opportunity with the new SDGs, whose implementation will be secured or lost in the next few years. The family planning community needs to be at the heart of those discussions. These means a fresh commitment from all of us. And it means talking to other sectors to put the comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights for every girl, adolescent, women everywhere, at the centre of absolutely everything to do. Thank you.