Twenty years and counting: taking the lessons learned from ICPD to move the sexual and reproductive health and rights agenda forward

The women's rights movement and the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) movement have been actively involved in ensuring that the gains (on sexual and reproductive health, reproductive rights and women's sexuality) made during the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo and the 1995 fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing are maintained and captured in the new development framework. International processes, especially the United Nations Population Fund's ICPD Beyond 2014 work, have proven essential platforms for this. However, the current geopolitical scenario provides a challenging environment to ensure that the comprehensive Cairo+20 agenda is given the due attention and place it deserves and requires. This article aims to articulate the critical gaps in political discourse and commitment to the ICPD agenda from 1994 to the time of ICPD beyond 2014. Governments' potential lack of commitment to crucial issues of SRHR is also examined and discussed in the first section. In the second section, the article looks at progress and gaps regarding specific and commonly used measures of SRHR as an indicator of where discourse and commitment are required. In the third section, as a follow-up to the previous one, the article discusses the need to and the possibilities of articulating and positioning the rights discourse more clearly within the current complex global discourse as a necessary step in the movement's political discourse. In the last section, some key challenges and opportunities, as well as identified recommendations, are discussed with regard to the way ahead for the SRHR agenda in the 2014 and beyond.