At the Rio+20 Conference, world leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, NGOs and other groups, will come together to shape how we can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection on an ever more crowded planet to get to the future we want.

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) is being organized in pursuance of General Assembly Resolution 64/236 (A/RES/64/236), and will take place in Brazil on 20-22 June 2012 to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), in Rio de Janeiro, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg. Learn more on the Rio+20 website.

Sexual and Reproductive Rights and Health at Rio+20

During meetings to finalize the Rio+20 document, delegates agreed on a plan short on vision and big on compromises. Read a blog post by Zonibel Woods that critiques the ways in which the Rio+20 agreement fails women.

"Women make up half of the world's population and most of the world's poor. In order to achieve sustainable development, women must be given the information and means to control their sexual and reproductive lives in order to actively participate in public life. Twenty years ago, women's rights to control their fertility and access vital reproductive health care were agreed by the international community. Today, we are facing backlash by certain governments that jeopardize women's autonomy, our bodily integrity, and our human rights. This is unacceptable. If we are speaking about The Future that We Want, we also need to make sure that the 1.8 billion adolescents and young men and women alive today, who are making choices about their sexuality and reproduction, are given the voice, health services, and rights in order to access employment opportunities. We call on governments to protect the commitments agreed to for the past twenty years to enable women to exercise freely and without discrimination, violence or coercion, their rights to access sexual and reproductive health services, and their right to control all matters related to their sexuality. Without women who are healthy and able to participate in public life, there can be no sustainable development."

-- Alexandra Garita, Senior Program Officer of International Policy, International Women's Health Coalition

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