DUSHANBE, Tajikistan – Empowering women and young people must be a key element in strategies to strengthen countries’ resilience to demographic change and the climate crisis, parliamentarians from 17 countries in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region agreed at a meeting held on 10 June 2024 in the margins of the Third International Water Conference in Dushanbe. 

In a declaration adopted at the meeting, the participating members of parliament pledged to advance legislative action to strengthen demographic resilience in a way that is comprehensive, based on evidence, and centered on people and their rights and needs.

“The declaration will serve as a commitment, collectively and individually, to push ahead with the agenda of empowering women and young people – an agenda that is so absolutely fundamental in light of the big challenges of our time, including demographic change and the climate crises,” said Florence Bauer, UNFPA Regional Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. 

“Women and young people must be at the core of the solutions we’re developing: they are key for building the human capital we need to weather these crises and build societies and economies that can thrive amid demographic change, in a just and sustainable way.”

Some 30 parliamentarians as well as representatives from governments, civil society and youth networks participated in the meeting, which was hosted by the Parliament of Tajikistan and organized by UNFPA in cooperation with the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development and the Asian Population and Development Association, with support from the Japan Trust Fund.

Empowering women and youth is a prerequisite for sustainable development and demographic resilience, and parliamentarians play a key role in this regard, Tajikistan's Deputy Prime Minister Dilrabo Mansuri Saydullo said at the opening of the event.

During the meeting, members of parliament stressed the important role women and young people can play in efforts to tackle the challenges countries are facing, including demographic change and the climate crisis. They shared examples and good practices for building societies where women and young people have access to rights, resources and opportunities in a sustainable manner.

Several parliamentarians stressed how empowering women and young people serves to strengthen societies’ human capital and puts them in a stronger position to deal with the effects of population shifts and climate change. 

 “I sincerely hope that the declaration you adopted today will add to the momentum towards putting women and young people front and center in national law-making efforts, because this is where they belong, in all their diversity, and with proper recognition of specific vulnerabilities,” said Ms. Bauer. 

Teodora Panus, a youth activist and President of the National Youth Council of Moldova, called on parliamentarians to make this a priority: “We urge you to accept us at the table. We ask that the voices of the 1.9 billion young people be heard.”

The meeting took place as part of a series of global and regional events to mark the 30th anniversary of the landmark International Conference on Population and Development, and its outcomes will feed into the Summit of the Future in September 2024. 

Click here for more information on the ICPD30 process in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region.