France calls for continued progress on sexual and reproductive health and (…)

Madam Chair,

Enjoying the best possible health is not a privilege but a fundamental right: it can only be guaranteed by robust and resilient healthcare systems, universal access to healthcare and determined action against inequalities.

As underscored by the Secretary-General’s reports, access to healthcare remains profoundly unequal, especially for the most vulnerable populations. Only effective universal health coverage can remedy this situation. To this end, it is more necessary than ever to strengthen:

• Financing of health systems and the goal of social protection for all;

• Investing in human resources in the healthcare field and the worker training;

• Ensuring equitable access to medical interventions and innovations, including in crisis situations;

• And acting in a cross-cutting manner on variables affecting healthcare for populations, under the “One Health” approach and including health in all policies.

In this respect, and as has already been done by Poland on behalf of the European Union and its Member States, France reaffirms its full support for the World Health Organization and its central role in the global health architecture. The COVID 19 pandemic has reminded us that without coordinated monitoring systems, effective multilateral decision-making bodies and effective crisis response tools, our societies will remain undangered and the entire international community will be jeopardized.

Full access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, including the right to abortion, are key preconditions to the health and well-being of all. For France, it is a prerequisite for gender equality: these rights give women control over their own bodies, the possibility of choice, and thus promote their empowerment. That is why that France enshrined the freedom to choose voluntary abortion in its constitution last year.

While we have made progress in terms of sexual and reproductive health and rights, particularly with the reduction of maternal mortality by a third and better school enrollments for girls, this progress is still too slow. At the current pace, it will take nearly 300 years of progress to achieve gender equality.

Moreover, this progress is fragile, and it is our collectively duty to remain fully mobilized to avoid any retrogression.

There is therefore an urgent need to act: the full implementation of the Cairo Program of Action can only be effective if we can guarantee, to each person, the freedom of making choices that concern them.

Madam Chair,

For its part, my country, France, will continue, through its feminist diplomacy, to urgently promote these causes in all platforms.

Thank you.