The year 2019 marks a double anniversary to commemorate 25 years of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and to celebrate UNFPA’s 50th anniversary. In 2019 UNFPA Country Office in Georgia also celebrates 20th year anniversary of its support to the country’s development.
UNFPA Country Office in Georgia in close collaboration with the UNFPA Regional Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia has initiated the regional conference to mark these important anniversaries by reinvigorating the regional dialogue on population dynamics and evidence-based population policies in the countries of the region.
The Regional Conference hosted the What’s Changed conversation – as part of a series of thought leadership conversations on ICPD, organized by UNPFA globally, leading to the Nairobi Summit in November, 2019. This conversation aims at generating unique knowledge base drawing on the insights of leading ICPD experts and people at the community level delivering the ICPD agenda, as well as creating a new understanding of how ICPD commitments must be fully realized and also adapted to current realities. The conversation was shaped around key thematic areas of the ICPD Programme of Action and gains made in the realization of sexual and reproductive rights.
The objective of the conference is to support enhanced understanding of the current population dynamics and trends in the region, including ageing, and of the status of policies and initiatives addressing these dynamics in the countries of the region. It is expected that through exchange of scientific evidence and good practices the evidence-based and people-centred policy making on population and development issues will be strengthened in the countries of the region.
The one-day conference was co-organized by the UNFPA Country Office in Georgia, the UNFPA Regional Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in partnership with the Administration of the Government of Georgia.
Participants of the conference were representatives of relevant government entities, academia, civil society organizations, international organizations from the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia Region; representatives of UNFPA Regional and Country Offices; invited international experts.
