Statement by Mr. Georgy Oksenoyt, Deputy Head, Federal State Statistics Service, at the 52nd session of the United Nations Commission on Population and Development (CPD) under agenda item 2 “Adoption of the agenda and other organizational issues: action on the draft declaration”
Dear Mr. Chairman,
Russia supported the Commission’s approval of the commemorative declaration on the occasion of the 25thanniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).
We are pleased that after a two-year interruption, the CPD was able to adopt by consensus an outcomedocument on the main theme of the session, albeit in a significantly truncated format. We thank the Chairman of the session, Mr. Courtney Rattray, the members of the Bureau of the Commission and the Secretariat for their efforts in preparing the draft and holding intergovernmental consultations on it.
We welcome the emphasis in the declaration on the commitment of Member Countries to the implementation of the ICPD Cairo Programme of Action. We regard the Programme as a fundamental document for international cooperation in the field of population and development, which is not subject to revision.
At the same time, we are compelled to point out that the regional review conferences on the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action for Europe in Geneva and for the Asia-Pacific Region in Bangkok that took place in autumn 2018 ended without the adoption of outcome documents agreed at the intergovernmental level. The summaries of the chairs of these events and the reports of the Secretariat on their work are a subjective reflection of the discussions. They cannot be considered as “guidance” for Member Countries. We state that a number of terms and concepts used in these documents cannot be considered generally accepted.
Questions also arise from the principle of preparing documents for regional reviews. For example, the joint report of the UNECE Secretariat and the UNFPA mentions the activities performed in Russia by an international NGO on the so-called “needles exchange”. We note that our country at the government level does not support the so-called “harm reduction strategy” associated with this practice. We consider it wrong to include such data in the UN document.
We confirm our position on the unacceptability of a number of provisions of the Asian and Pacific Ministerial Declaration on Population and Development of 2013, which had been adopted by vote and which was the focus of the last year’s regional review for the Asia-Pacific Region.
We proceed from the fact that the outcomes of the mentioned regional reviews do not impose obligations on the Member States and do not entail consequences for the work of the specialized bodies of the UN system.
We expect that in 2020 the Commission will return to the traditional practice of adopting a full-fledged resolution on the main theme of its annual session and will be able to reach its adoption by consensus.
Thank you for attention.
