Representatives from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) signed this Wednesday (17) a partnership to promote globalized actions to prepare new healthcare professionals. The purpose of the cooperative action is to contribute, by way of research and qualification to provide universal healthcare coverage.
The joint initiatives propose to include the utilization of the Fiocruz Virtual Campus and offer professional healthcare courses to countries where UNFPA operate — especially in the Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries in Africa. There is also a plan for the possibility of an internship at the headquarters of the organization in New York.
Nísia Trindade, the president of Fiocruz, has said this collaborative effort has come at a very opportune moment, as the Brazilian foundation is preparing to celebrate its 120th anniversary, in 2020. The theme of the anniversary celebration will be “A vision of the future for health.” “In such a vision, the future needs to be envisioned on a large-scale basis, coherent with the terms of Agenda 2030“, states Trindade, citing the agenda of the United Nations that will reunite the 17 Sustainable Development Objectives”.
Fiocruz and the Population Fund in Brazil already have entered a partnership for a commitment to strengthen public policies and a United Healthcare System (SUS). In 2016, the two institutions had already played an important role in responding to the hazard of zika virus. There has been an open dialog among specialists, researchers, civil society, international entities, and important players in the government making it possible to improve policies on the rights of women and adolescents to combat this epidemic.
Reproductive rights in Egypt
A Brazilian research institution has successful projects in the Cairo Programme of Action — a strategy adopted by countries after the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) that took place in 1994, in the capital of Egypt.
The ICPD represented a change in the paradigm in the manner in how reproduction rights were discussed, placing emphasis on individual rights, empowering women and giving them the option to choose. “This agreement is going to help us and further harness our strengths and will benefit more people in Brazil and throughout the world. And we hope to establish more international centers of excellence for sharing know-how and innovation, leveraging the successful experiences of Fiocruz in the specific segments as stated in the Cairo Programme of Action, the International Conference on Population and Development, the ICPD that guides our work at UNFPA”, states Natalia Kanem, global leader of UNFPA.
Jaime Nadal is the UN representative in Brazil and even stated that Fiocruz “has contributed in diverse manners toward achieving the goal of sustainable development, promoting sexual and reproductive health, and helping to assure that the mandate of UNFPA will be materialized. It can strengthen public policies and the institutional capacity of countries through sharing good practices and know-how”.
A High-Level Political Forum
The meeting for formalizing the partnership between UNFPA and Fiocruz took place at the headquarters of the Population Fund, in New York. Delegations from both institutions participated this week at the High-Level Political Forum for Sustainable Development, a UN event that reunited representatives from the government, civil society, private sector, and academics to discuss the progress and challenges in achieving SDGs. The event began on the ninth, and it ended this Thursday (18).
The UNFPA took advantage of the occasion to shed light on the 25 years of the International Conference on Population and Development. “In this important conference, the decision to have or not have children, how many, and when to have them started to be recognized as a human right. In these 25 years, it is necessary to reflect on how much we have achieved and what is yet to be achieved in a world where all pregnancies are desirable, all births are safe and by which all youth can reach their full potential”, reminds Jaime Nadal.