UN: Sustainable Development and Family Planning

Debate between Baroness Northover and Viscount Craigavon

Monday 19th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend is right. Rural women and girls currently have limited access to all sorts of resources. Often it is difficult for them to participate in conferences like this, yet it is very important that they do. Ultimately, of course, it is for the Governments themselves to determine the make-up of their delegations. We can but encourage and make the points that my noble friend has made about the importance of this issue.

[Viscount Craigavon]

My Lords, while accepting that education is extremely important in this area, does the Minister agree that there is already an expressed and unmet need of over 200 million couples for contraception and family planning? She mentioned in her Answer what we wanted to talk about at the summit, but is this subject actually on the agenda, or have we still got to get it on the agenda?

[Baroness Northover]

It is one of the issues that we are flagging up. The noble Viscount will know that DfID is hosting a large conference in July on this. It is part of the emphasis that we wish to make in development generally and, of course, it is extremely relevant to Rio.