When we invest in women and girls, everyone benefits
In her recent opening remarks at the fifty-seventh session of the Commission on Population and Development (29 April 2024), Dr. Natalia Kanem, Executive Director of the United Nations Sexual and Reproductive Health Agency (UNFPA), spoke about the transformational journey that began at the International Conference on Population and Development International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo Thirty years ago. There the cornerstones of sustainable development have been firmly laid through a firm commitment to gender equality, the empowerment of women and girls, and universal access to sexual and reproductive health as human rights. Dr. Kanem cited remarkable progress in multiple areas that directly impact the quality of life and opportunities for women and girls globally. For example, girls have now achieved parity with boys in primary education and outperformed them in enrollment in tertiary education. There has been a significant decline in maternal mortality rates, a