3-4 Jul 2024 Cartagena de indias, Colombia | Conferences and meetings of subsidiary bodies
3 - 4 july 2024
The Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development contributes to laying the foundations for people-centered sustainable development with equality and a human rights, gender, race and ethnicity, disability, and intercultural perspective, taking into account migration status, according to the authorities and delegates from 21 Latin American and Caribbean countries, from United Nations agencies, and regional, multilateral and civil society organizations gathered today at the closing segment of the Fifth Session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development.
At this event – which drew more than 570 people, 340 of them members of civil society organizations – the participants ratified that the full, effective, rapid and resourced implementation of the Montevideo Consensus will contribute significantly to the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development beyond 2014 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
After two days of intense debate held at the Convention Center in Cartagena de Indias, these representatives affirmed the crucial importance of strengthening public policy management aimed at ensuring the full exercise of the rights and development of the autonomy and quality of life of persons with disabilities and stressed that these issues are an inherent part of the population and development agenda.
The closing ceremony – held on Thursday, July 4 – was led by Javier Medina Vásquez, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), speaking on behalf of the organization’s Executive Secretary, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs; Susana Sottoli, Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); Constanza Bejarano Ramos, Director of Economic, Social and Environmental Affairs at Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and Adriana Mendoza, Ambassador from the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Colombia, the country serving as Chair of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“With great satisfaction, we reach the closing segment of this Session. On behalf of ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, I want to deeply thank the government of Colombia again for the warm reception and welcome it has given us over the last few days,” said Javier Medina Vásquez, ECLAC’s Deputy Executive Secretary.
He added that very valuable reflections were imparted in the course of the meeting, in a global and regional scenario that is considerably more complex, uncertain and conflictual than it was three decades ago, marked as well by polarization and intolerance.
“In this context, the Montevideo Consensus is an instrument for developing a shared vision of the future, which reflects the comprehensiveness posed by the Cairo Programme of Action in 1994. It is also the most progressive document in the world,” Javier Medina underscored.
Meanwhile, UNFPA’s Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Susana Sottoli, indicated that “it is in the interest of all nations to pursue population-centered development, because it creates the conditions for healthy and empowered individuals and societies. Amid the recent complex crises and growing polarization, uniting the world in pursuit of this practice has never been a more urgent priority.”
Furthermore, she urged for continuing this dialogue to continue sustaining the progress made and to find solutions collectively and promote inclusive policies and practices that would allow for tackling inequalities, accelerating the actions needed to ensure that no one is left behind, and for living in a world where all people, women, girls, female adolescents – without distinction – can fully exercise all their rights.
The Director of Economic, Social and Environmental Affairs at Colombia’s Foreign Ministry, Constanza Bejarano Ramos, meanwhile, emphasized that Latin America and the Caribbean is a progressive, innovative and resilient region.
“This spirit of solidarity is the same one that drives our progress on implementation of the Montevideo Consensus. However, we have also witnessed the challenges we still face and the intraregional heterogeneities in the degree of implementation of the Consensus. Some challenges that know no borders and that become a shared responsibility,” she affirmed.
In the resolution approved at the end of the meeting, the acceding countries resolved to establish the open-ended group of friends of the Chair on the rights of persons with disabilities and the population and development agenda in the framework of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Cartagena Group. This Group aims to examine strategies to advance the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the framework of the Conference, thereby contributing to the promotion and protection of their human rights.
The resolution requests that countries, in their presentations on national progress on implementation of the Montevideo Consensus to be delivered at the Sixth Meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will be held in 2025, report on the progress made and public policy action implemented regarding the inclusion of persons with disabilities.
It also highlights the intergenerational and intercultural solidarity promoted in the Montevideo Consensus and looks forward with interest to the Pact for the Future and the annexes thereto and the Declaration on Future Generations to be adopted at the Summit of the Future, which will be held on September 22-23, 2024 in New York.
Colombia took over as Chair of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Population and Development, with the Vice-Chairs held by Antigua and Barbuda, Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Honduras, Peru, Suriname and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
