The way of sustainable development with China

UNFPA is the united nations population fund. We've been in china since 1979, and started delivering our first programs on the ground in 1980. It's really been a long partnership with the government of China. In many ways, I don't think of it as UNFPA 's achievements, but I think of it more looking at the major achievements in china, the major progress that's been made on so many aspects of sexual and reproductive health, which is the area that we work on and also on women's well being and young people’s well being.And so we've been, I feel a partner in that as the situation has changed in china, we've changed the way that we work.

So just to give you an example, when we opened our office, the maternal mortality ratio, as we call it was 100 deaths per 100,000 live birth, which meant that for every baby that was born, 100 women died, which is really quite high.

Today in china, the latest figure for 2020 was that figure has now reduced to just over sixteen. So that really brings china into being one of the best countries in the world to have a baby. And actually the government's just made a commitment to reduce that number even further by investing even more in strengthening maternal health services.

So I think that everything that we do is UNFPA with our Chinese partners in the future will be in a framework of addressing low fertility and aging. The three child policy was announced back in 2021. We actually think we may have peaked at population and so really working with our partners in government to look at what policies and practices could be put in place to help china address the challenges that come when you see a low fertility and also a rapidly aging population.

I care passionately about gender equality. I care passionately about maximizing choice for women and really giving them every opportunity to be the best that they can be. What we see globally is that under the millennium development goals, for example, there were huge improvements made, particularly in terms of maternal health, but also the health of newborns.

And then we also saw huge improvements in terms of levels of enrollment, in primary education. But if you think that then a girl gets to the age of 10, 11, 12, in many countries, then as she enters adolescence, there's a whole range of additional risks that she faces.So sexual violence, unintended pregnancy, possibly being forced out of school, possibly not being given the same opportunities as her brother, because she's a girl, we see girls being married when they are still children before the age of 18 without their consent. We see harmful practices like female genital mutilation. So there are many challenges for adolescent girls at that period in their lives. And if we don't help them at that point, if we don't protect them, if we don't ensure that they can get a good education, then actually that is a disadvantage they carry right throughout their adulthood.For me and actually also for my agency,UNFPA getting it right in adolescence is so critical, and really supporting women throughout the life course.

So now, for example,we've done a lot of work around, maternal health for women ,we also starting to think about women over 50. What are the challenges of women in that age group? And what role does UNFPA need to play to support women over 50 to ensure that they continue to enjoy gender equality and good health and well being

I think one thing that struck me here is how many times I've actually found myself with a group of professionals where actually the majority of those professionals are women. In fact, I even had an experience last week where we met with our partners at the national bureau of statistics, and all the statistician, demographers and scientists at the table were women. So I do think that there is experience in china of professional women really being able to excel in their career and find their space to do that, which I think is a very positive experience to share.For example, we know now that the majority of students who are registered in university are women in china. And so I think creating those sorts of communities for women is something that can be shared.

We did some work along with some other partners to show that there's an expectation that potentially, the population has reached its peak or always close to reaching its peak. And it's really thinking now about what's gonna happen in the future. And there's two scenarios, really. So either that you may just see the population size sort of remain the same before it eventually slowly declines, or that you potentially see a much deeper decline.So when you look at the new policies around fertility support, so under this concept of the three child policy, a better support, I think, for maternity leave, for paternity leave, looking at how the quality and affordability of child care can be improved.

I do think that the Chinese experience over the next twenty, thirty years is going to be one that the rest of the world will watch. Because there are countries, even in africa, we may think of Africa normally having big, rapidly rising populations. But that isn't the case for all countries. And there are African countries now that know that by the time, they reach maybe another decade or another 15 years will actually start seeing a rapidly aging population and a reducing fertility.And so i do think that the Chinese experience is gonna be one that will all be learning from watching very closely.

As you know,with the president Xi’s announcement of the global development initiative. I think that really reemphasized china's commitment to accelerating the SDGs, not only domestically, but actually playing a role in helping less developed countries to accelerate progress on the SDGs, because it's correct that when we look across the 17 goals ,many countries are not on a track to achieve them in full by 2030.

So, for example, in Sierra Leone, we've had a program where Chinese funding has helped us to strengthen training and the delivery of cervical cancer services for women. And that partnerships developed even further where there's now a partnership between the ministry of health in Sierra Leone and a provincial hospital here in china, and the hospital is providing training for hospital officials from Sierra Leone. So that's just one way in which I think the UNFPA broke that partnership. So other countries can really benefit from china's expertise.

I think, although we always say that women and adolescent girls are at the heart of the work we do as UNFPA, that's actually all young people. And we recognize as well that boys experience particular challenges and we also need to reach boys with adequate information around sexual reproductive health. We do a lot of work on comprehensive sexuality education. We also do a lot of work on youth empowerment and leadership. So really ensuring that young people understand about the sustainable development goals. How can they play an active,positive role in their community and beyond. So, young people are are the future. I think that when the right investments are made, young people really can transform societies with their new ideas and innovation. We've really got to give them every support to be able to do that.

I think our priorities both as an individual UN agency, and then also, as the UN as a whole, is looking at the progress that we've made both under the MDGs, and then from the SDGs from 2015, is really doing everything possible to make sure that we don't fall back on that progress. This is absolutely critical.

But then I think looking at governance issues, also really going back to your question about young people really building that next generation of leaders, so creating or working with this generation of young people to really open up their minds to the world, to wanting to work in partnership, to want to contribute to society. And it was interesting because recently, the All China Youth Federation ran the First World Development Youth Forum. And what was interesting about that was how many young people from across the world wanted to engage and really want to be part of a conversation between countries, sharing experiences, working out what role they can play as young people to make their societies better to change the world.

And so I think there's a huge potential there that, again, if we make the right investments in young people, if we create those platforms and spaces for them, to take on those leadership roles, that really is something positive for the future of the world.