Lao PDR Lawmakers Meet to Further ICPD25 Programme of Action — Global Issues
VIENTIANE, Apr 29 (IPS) – A latest workshop of lawmakers heard that focused interventions could be crucial to fulfill the Worldwide Convention on Inhabitants and Growth (ICPD), its Programme of Motion (PoA), and Lao PDR’s nationwide commitments to ICPD25 on the Nairobi Summit 2019.
The Workshop on Harnessing Demographic Dividend by the Roadmap to 2030 for Lao PDR aimed to equip parliamentarians with the data and techniques crucial to handle the important inhabitants and improvement challenges confronting Lao PDR.
Thoummaly Vongphachanh, MP and Chair of Social and Cultural Affairs Committees, Nationwide Meeting, advised the workshop in her opening deal with that collective motion was necessary for tackling inhabitants and improvement challenges.
Edcel Lagman, MP Philippines and appearing Chair of AFPPD, addressed the ICPD’s emphasis on particular person rights, gender equality, and the correlation between improvement and girls’s empowerment. With this in thoughts, he urged parliamentarians to enact rights-based insurance policies that promote gender equality and social justice, incorporating inhabitants dynamics into improvement planning.
UNFPA Consultant to Lao PDR, Dr Bakhtiyor Kadyrov, reiterated the group’s dedication to supporting parliamentarians and authorities initiatives in addressing inhabitants and improvement challenges, emphasizing the significance of inclusive insurance policies and partnerships to make sure nobody is left behind.
A consultant of DoP/MPI, Kaluna Nanthavongduangsy, supplied an total overview of the ICPD and its POA, together with Lao PDR’s nationwide commitments to ICPD25, on the Nairobi Summit 2019. He mentioned its dedication was primarily based on 5 pillars.
- Managing and utilizing demographic advantages and investing in youth.
- Addressing local weather change and its affect on the general public sector and social safety.
- Selling well being and well-being, together with rights to sexual and reproductive well being.
- Enhancing the supply and use of demographic info.
- Strengthening partnerships and mobilizing assets.
Latdavanh Songvilay, Director Normal of the Macroeconomic Analysis Institute, Lao Academy of Social and Financial Sciences, outlined numerous challenges hindering the belief of the demographic dividend in Lao PDR. These challenges could embrace limitations to training and employment, insufficient healthcare infrastructure, and socio-cultural components impacting ladies’s empowerment and reproductive well being.
Her presentation supplied precious insights into the advanced interaction between demographic adjustments, socio-economic improvement, and coverage formulation in Lao PDR. By figuring out alternatives and addressing challenges, her evaluation was essential for the parliamentarians to make knowledgeable selections and establish focused interventions that would maximize the advantages of the demographic transition.
The Lao’s Household Welfare Promotion Affiliation’s Govt Director, Dr Souphon Sayavong, emphasised the significance of complete approaches that mix authorized frameworks, legislation enforcement, survivor assist companies, and neighborhood engagement to fight SGBV successfully.
He additionally famous that dangerous practices, corresponding to little one marriage and different types of gender-based violence, wanted focused interventions to lift consciousness, present assist to survivors, and alter social norms that perpetuate dangerous practices.
Sayavong additionally mentioned that there have been socio-economic penalties of gender inequality and SGBV, emphasizing their detrimental results on particular person well-being, neighborhood improvement, and nationwide progress.
Dr Mayfong Mayxay, Member of Parliament and Vice-Rector of the College of Well being Sciences, Ministry of Well being, Lao PDR, mentioned it was essential to establish and sort out the assorted issues encountered by younger individuals, together with drug dependancy, faculty dropout, early marriage, adolescent being pregnant, and insufficient diet throughout being pregnant.
He mentioned further points like substance abuse, smoking, and alcohol consumption wanted focused interventions, together with prevention programmes and consciousness campaigns. College dropout points have been typically socioeconomic, so it was necessary to seek out methods together with scholarships, vocational coaching alternatives, and community-based assist methods to make sure that younger individuals can entry training and pursue their aspirations.
Throughout his presentation, he highlighted the dangers related to early marriage and adolescent pregnancies, which pose important well being dangers for each moms and youngsters.
Mayxay emphasised the significance of complete sexual training, entry to reproductive well being companies, and authorized reforms to handle these points and shield the rights of younger ladies.
He underscored the significance of selling maternal and little one well being, together with the necessity for dietary training, prenatal care companies, and assist methods to handle malnutrition and its adversarial results on maternal and little one well being outcomes.
Options he urged concerned holistic approaches encompassing training, healthcare, neighborhood assist, and coverage reforms, to empower younger individuals and guarantee their well being and well-being.
Dr Usmonov Farrukh, interim Govt Director of AFPPD, reiterated AFPPD’s dedication to supporting parliamentarians’ advocacy on inhabitants and improvement within the Asia-Pacific in his closing speech, emphasizing collective motion and partnership.
Vongphachanh’s closing remarks summed up the priorities agreed to within the assembly of the 14 Nationwide Commitments on the first Nationwide Convention on Inhabitants and Growth, Demographic Change, held in 2023. She mentioned alternatives, challenges, and coverage levers to attain demographic dividends, ladies’s empowerment and prevention and response to GBV and dangerous practices, dedication to their programme of Household Planning 2030, and the well being and way forward for the younger inhabitants, notably the resolutions for social points they’re going through corresponding to drug use, faculty dropout, early marriage, and adolescent being pregnant, have been essential.
Observe: This workshop was supported by AFPPD and APDA, the UNFPA, and the Japan Belief Fund.
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