Launch of UNFPA-URG report ‘Advancing Rights, Transforming Lives’

On 11 July 2023, a joint UNFPA-Universal Rights Group report, ‘Advancing Rights, Transforming Lives: UNFPA strategic engagement with the UN human rights system to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights,’ was be launched on the side of the Human Rights Council 53rd session.

Speakers at the launch provided an overview of the report’s main sections, the engagement between States and UN human rights mechanisms to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights through the implementation of recommendations, and shared experiences from the report’s country case studies.

Speakers included: H.E. Tine Mørch Smith, Permanent Representative of Norway; Monica Ferro, Director, UNFPA Representation Office in Geneva; Hannah Wu, Chief, Women’s Human Rights and Gender Section, OHCHR; Marc Limon, Executive Director, Universal Rights Group; H.E. Ms. Shara Duncan Villalobos, Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the United Nations in Geneva; H.E. Yerlan Alimbayev, Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the United Nations in Geneva; and H.E. Ms. Rina Hanis Rodzli, Deputy Permanent Representative of Malaysia, chargée d’Affaires at the Permanent Mission of Malaysia to the United Nations in Geneva.

The event was co-sponsored by Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Norway and OHCHR. A recording of the event can be watched here.