SANTIAGO, Chile, CMC – Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries have reaffirmed their commitment to the implementation of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development.

It is regarded as the region’s most important intergovernmental agreement in this area and a comprehensive road map that constitutes one of the most advanced instruments in the world for promoting the population’s rights within a sustainable development framework, during a commemoration of the tenth anniversary of its adoption.

At the special session “10 years of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development” – held ahead of Wednesday’s opening of the fifth meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Population and Development, LAC countries agreed on the need to concentrate efforts to extend and further carve out the path already travelled, as well as to enhance the strengths that have made the Montevideo Consensus such a powerful instrument in the last decade.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Executive Secretary, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, said “A decade after its adoption, we can affirm with full conviction and evidence that the Montevideo Consensus has helped promote and consolidate public policies in the region’s countries geared towards reducing inequality with an intercultural, intersectional and intergenerational approach based on human rights and a gender perspective”.

However, he warned, much remains to be done, and greater efforts are needed to guarantee the exercise of sexual and reproductive rights, achieve gender equality, as well as to fight poverty and inequality, and to include those population groups that historically have been the most neglected and excluded in development patterns.

The event will also feature two thematic panels on which government, civil society and academic presenters will analyse progress and challenges concerning public policies on population and development, gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights.