As the conference is slowly coming to an end, UN women gathers once again in the hope of finding a breakthrough in finding the universal standard of reproductive healthcare with an emphasis on maternal medical care.
The conference got off to a smooth start, as most delegates pointed out to be happy with the progress made so far. Sierra Leone stated that they were “happy with the document drafted now” and “we want to go on with the work we presented yesterday”. New Zealand and the United States concurred with this point of view. The United States pointed out that “we were able to put our cultural differences aside and to create something to help our fellow women”. The prospect of a breakthrough is unexpected considering the differences in beliefs and values of, for example, the People’s Republic of China or the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
However, the delegates also agreed that some time was needed “to go through the document and look for possible amendments”.
In a fifteen minutes unmoderated caucus proposed by the United States, the clauses of the proposed paper were discussed. The unmoderated caucus was, at times, a bit unorganised and sometimes “cross-talking” was taking place, as described by one of the chairs. At some point, a consultation of the whole was proposed, but this proposal did not lead to anything.
However, overall, there was a positive ambience in the conference room and although there were some substantive points of discussion and the debate was not heated at any point. Mostly, clauses were merged or their phrasing was slightly adapted, but no big amendments were made.
Very soon, a draft resolution was actually submitted and approved by the secretariat. Following up, the draft resolution was introduced by the delegates. Here are the first few points discussed in the draft resolution.
Broadly speaking, this draft resolution focussed on “Increasing community-based education about and awareness of the importance of maternal healthcare”. Section 3 focused on emphasizing the need for cooperation between UN Women and the UNHCR in improving maternal care in refugee camps. Furthermore, section 4 emphasizes the broader implementation of maternal healthcare vouchers to drive up the demand side of maternal care. Section 5 emphasizes “the need for maternal healthcare in crisis regions by establishing the Yes Maternal Crisis Agency.”
For more details on this resolution, we request the reader of this article to read the resolution after it will be made public.
- Lars Hamers, World News correspondent for Reuters
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