Address by Minister Bibeau at the Canadian Partnership for Women and Children’s Health (CanWaCH) Adolescent Health Conference

May 16, 2017 - Ottawa, Ontario

Check against delivery. This speech has been translated in accordance with the Government of Canada’s official languages policy and edited for posting and distribution in accordance with its communications policy.

Good morning.

To all those who are in Canada for the first time, welcome! To all those who are back, it is a pleasure to see you again.

We are meeting to talk about an issue that is often not on the agenda of major international conferences.

It is to advance an often overlooked, but very important, cause: adolescent health.

We value the deep expertise that you bring. We value your commitment to improving the health and well-being of adolescents around the world.

As the conference title says, our aim over the next two days is nothing short of unleashing the power of a generation to help build lasting change.

Before I continue, let me extend a warm thank-you to the Canadian Partnership for Women and Children’s Health for their vision and for co-hosting this important conference.

And to Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, who will deliver what I am sure will be an inspiring keynote address. We are honoured that you were able to join us today.

With an unprecedented number of adolescents in the world today—nearly a quarter of the world’s population—there is no question that healthy and empowered adolescents are going to be key to achieving the sustainable development goals.

We have made huge progress in improving human health in recent years.

More women are surviving pregnancy and childbirth.

More children are living to celebrate their fifth birthdays and beyond.

But adolescents—especially girls—are still being left behind.

Adolescent girls are more likely to die from AIDS than any other cause. And suicide is the second-leading cause of death for this group.

Every 10 minutes, an adolescent girl dies from violence.

Sixty-two million of them are not in school.

I have met girls facing challenges like these over and over again in my travels.

But regardless of their situations, I can always see a spark of potential in their eyes.

I see hope, energy and passion.

But these girls are struggling.

They face systemic inequality and barriers. Violence. Discrimination. Stigma. Exploitation.

They suffer from poor health and nutrition.

They don’t have equal access to education.

Too many adolescent girls are either not going to school or leaving school too early.

Because they are forced into marriage or motherhood instead of pursuing their education.

Or because their school does not have proper sanitation facilities to help them manage their menstrual hygiene.

Or because they are simply too afraid to walk to school because of the threat of sexual violence.

And because of all that, adolescents in developing countries cannot reach their full potential.

And that is why we are all here today: to unleash that power.

To help adolescents—especially girls—overcome the challenges they face and become powerful agents of change for a better world.

The physical, cognitive, social and emotional growth that happens during adolescence sets the foundation for lifelong well-being.

According to The Lancet, some of the most effective actions we can take to improve adolescent health go well beyond health care.

To be healthy and empowered, adolescents need access to quality health care, services and information.

But they also need a good education.

They need quality nutrition. To be free from violence and discrimination. To be safe.

And to have the skills and freedom to make their own decisions about their bodies and their lives.

Adolescent girls need to have a voice and a choice.

It is clear that adolescents, especially adolescent girls, have not fully benefited from progress linked to development.

We can, and must, do more for this generation.

Next week, the High-Level Working Group for the Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents, of which I am a member, will launch a report—a report that lays out action-oriented recommendations to implement human-rights-based approaches to health at the country level.

This report is important, as it will guide the actions that the governments we are working with can and must take to ensure that everyone, including adolescents, has access to health and information services.

This integrated approach, based on human rights, including sexual and reproductive rights, is a solution for reaching groups too often abandoned.

And unfortunately, adolescents are among those groups.

And that is especially true for adolescent girls, probably because sexual and reproductive health is too often excluded from our approaches.

Very soon, I will have the opportunity to present to you the details of our new feminist international aid policy, which not only recognizes the importance of gender equality, but also seeks to transform gender power relationships.

I can assure you that promoting gender equality and the rights and empowerment of women and girls is at the heart of everything that we do.

We also support the She Decides movement, which works to ensure that women and girls can decide themselves whether, when and with whom to have children.

Canada has already announced $650 million over three years for sexual and reproductive health and rights to help achieve this goal.

The Her Voice Her Choice initiative will provide comprehensive sexuality education, family planning, contraceptives and access to safe and legal abortion. It will also strengthen reproductive health services and support women advocates for these rights.

Canada is also working to empower adolescents and improve their health through innovative partnerships with Canadian organizations and in developing countries that address the broader social determinants of health.

All of this will help adolescents—especially girls.

If we could just meet adolescents’ need for modern contraception, for example, we could prevent 2.1 million unplanned births, 3.2 million abortions, and 5,600 maternal deaths every year.

We must not let that opportunity pass us by.

That is also why we encourage the meaningful participation of adolescents.

They bring much-needed energy, creativity and passion.

They also hold us to account.

Speaking of being held to account, millions of adolescent girls are now growing up in humanitarian settings.

Settings that present specific challenges for them, especially with respect to their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

We must address this in our humanitarian responses.

This is one example of how we will be working differently through our feminist international assistance policy.

There is a tremendous amount of collective wisdom and experience in this room.

Over the next couple of days, I challenge you to discuss how we can measure the progress we are making and what we need to do differently to make even more of a difference.

I challenge you to think creatively about how to mobilize the resources and build and sustain the partnerships we need.

These are big challenges, I know, but if we can rise to these challenges, the benefits will be tremendous.

Today, we are building momentum to create a global road map to achieve the targets related to adolescent health set out by Agenda 2030 and the Global Strategy on Women’s, Children’s and Adolescent’s Health.

Momentum that we will continue to build together at the World Health Assembly later this month and at the Family Planning Summit coming up in London.

We are well on the way to ensuring that adolescent health is squarely on the global agenda.

We are well on the way to making sure that adolescents are no longer left behind.

Take a look around.

In this room we have representatives of Canadian and global organizations working to advance adolescent health: the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, the United Nations Every Woman Every Child partners and implementers, and donor and developing countries.

And we also have many youth leaders.

We have an opportunity to shape the way forward on adolescent health—together.

We must keep the momentum going.

Because unleashing the power and potential of the 1.8 billion adolescents around the globe will truly transform our world.

Thank you.

Contacts

Marie-Emmanuelle Cadieux
Press Secretary
Office of the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie
343-203-6238
marie-emmanuelle.cadieux@international.gc.ca

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Global Affairs Canada
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media@international.gc.ca
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