Between May 5^th and 9^th, a new phase of consultations negotiations around specific focus
 areas that will be the basis to develop the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) took place in New York. The Open Working Group (OWG), comprised of 30 governments mandated by the General Assembly to prepare a proposal on the SDGs, discussed specific goals, targets and indicators.
 
These discussions will feed in the OWG’s report to be adopted this summer and officially presented at the UN General Assembly in September 2014. The report will be one of the main reference texts to guide the intergovernmental negotiations at UN level on the post-MDG framework, ending in September 2015 with the adoption of the new post-2015 development agenda.
 
Given the importance of these consultations, 87 European NGOs across 42 European countries, and DSW among them, developed a joint position paper in early May calling on their governments to include universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in the post-2015 framework.
 
This group of European CSOs asks for five concrete points, namely: (i) a  ‘Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment and Women’s rights’ stand-alone goal with specific SRHR targets and respective integration across the framework; (ii) a target on ‘Universal Access to SRHR’ under the Health stand-alone goal; (iii) addressing population dynamics as a cross-cutting issue and from a human rights perspective; (iv) including  ‘comprehensive sexuality education’ under the ‘Education’ stand-alone goal and (v) a special focus on young people’s and adolescents’ needs through specific targets and indicators across the framework.
 
To read full position paper, please click on:
http://www.eurongos.org/Files/HTML/EuroNGOs/news/EuroNGOs-C2015E-IPPFEN-ASTRA_Post-2015%20position%20paper_FINAL.pdf