Introduction

Gita Sen & Cai Yiping

DAWN is very pleased and grateful to have been able to collaborate with a very knowledgeable and committed group of authors – Sapna Desai (South Asia), Tesa de Vela and Mira Ofreneo (Southeast Asia), Tonya Haynes and Cherise Adjodha (Caribbean), Alex Garita (Latin America), Jocelyn DeJong, Hyam Bashour, Manal Benkirane, Maguy Ghanem, Adf Gherissi and Huda Zurayk (MENA countries), and Tara Chetty and Rachel Faleatua (Pacific) to produce these Regional Advocacy Tools on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights.

Special thanks to Mridula Shankar for support with editing the papers and ensuring consistency and clarity.

DAWN is happy to make available these Regional Advocacy Tools on sexual and reproductive health and rights that have been part of our contribution to feminist mobilization for the 20th year review of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). We engaged in this important review process at regional and global levels, through analysis and advocacy, and working with partners and colleagues in civil society and governments.

DAWN’s SRHR advocacy happens not only in sites and processes focused on SRHR and population directly, but in a range of linked processes. In the last five years, this has included our work for the Rio+20 process, the review of the MDGs, the SDGs and post 2015 agenda negotiations, and the related process on Financing for Development.  The interlinkages among these processes and the centrality of women’s human rights, bodily autonomy and integrity to social and economic justice, sustainable development and a peaceful world became more and more clear during this period, not only through the passionate strength of feminist activists and advocates, but through the stubbornness of the opposition to women’s human rights from conservative forces.

DAWN is proud of having worked closely with many partners in shaping the SRHR agenda for the next phase. At a strategy meeting for ICPD+20 organized jointly by DAWN, RESURJ and IWHC in Mexico City in December 2011, and at the follow-up meeting in Bangkok in February 2012, three key areas were agreed upon as the main themes for our collective advocacy and action: (i) access to comprehensive and integrated sexual and reproductive health services; (ii) the specific SRH needs and rights of young people; and, (iii) sexual and reproductive rights.

The DAWN Regional Advocacy Tools for Cairo @20 are analysis and advocacy papers from six regions of the global South – South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, the Caribbean, Latin America and the MENA region. (Unfortunately we were unable for a variety of reasons to complete a corresponding paper for sub-Saharan Africa. We aim to fill this gap in our ongoing regional work).

The aim of each paper is to provide substantive overview and analyses of the three key sexual and reproductive health and rights issues identified above.  These RATs have been part of DAWN’s inputs to support SRHR advocacy in each region in the lead-up to various official and civil society regional and global meetings.

In addition to identifying available data sources, these advocacy tools have drawn on the strongest and sharpest country and regional analyses and present such data and analyses based on the advances made, the barriers to implementing ICPD and the regressions that occurred since 1994, for each of the key thematic areas.

The RATs are NOT meant to be comprehensive either in terms of the issues or of the countries covered. Each RAT identifies one (or more) main issue/s in the region for each of the 3 themes. The chosen issue/s have been analyzed using specific country experiences as illustrations.

The data utilized have been sourced broadly for the period after the ICPD (1994). The data include national and regional data sources, including those from UN regional commissions such as ESCAP, ECLAC, ECA and others; secondary data from government agencies, academic institutions, women’s organizations, human rights networks, and research centers; interviews with relevant national and regional actors and stakeholders including policy-makers, women’s rights activists and organizations, as well as former DAWN Training Institute and Regional Training Institute participants, and other SRHR “champions” at country and regional levels.

We encourage our friends and partners to use these RATs in their own analysis, as the issues they raise are not limited to the period of the review processes. In doing so, we request that you acknowledge the individual authors and DAWN in the usual manner.

Below are links to the RATs by region, with the authors and countries covered by the research. Each paper is in pdf format, with an interactive Table of Contents and Bookmarks.