<p>Today as we celebrate World Population Day, we also celebrate the 10th anniversary of the historic International Conference on Population and Development.</p>

<p>I am very pleased to be here with all of you. I would like to thank you for coming today to discuss different aspects of the historic and visionary Cairo agenda on population and development.</p>

<p>It is a great honour to be with you here in Dakar, the capital of the famous land of teranga. Twelve years ago, African countries met in this beautiful city of Dakar and worked tirelessly to formulate, debate and adopt by consensus the Dakar/Ngor Declaration.</p>

<p class="bodytext">Today, I want to be very practical. I want to answer the question: Why should we link HIV/AIDS with sexual and reproductive health.</p>

<p>Good morning. It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this panel on child marriage. Before I begin, I would like to say how sad I am that the Global Health Council lost its funding partly because of the participation of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in this year’s programme.</p>

<p>Today, as we commemorate the International Day of Families, we also mark the tenth anniversary of the 1994 International Year of the Family.</p>

<p>Thank you, Latika, for the introduction. It is amazing, as Latika has said, that two young women, one a Hindu from India and the other from Muslim Saudi Arabia met 31 years ago and established a sisterhood of the spirit that remains since then, despite the passage of time, and geography.</p> <p> </p>

<p>The closing ceremony of the 37th session of the Commission on Population and Development comes nearly seven weeks later than we had anticipated.</p>

<p>I would like to extend my warm appreciation to the Government of Mexico for inviting me to be part of the launching of the 10-year report on the national implementation of the Programme of Action of the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).</p>

<p>It gives me great pleasure to address the opening of this thirty-seventh session of the Commission on Population and Development. Let me begin, Mr. Chairman, by congratulating you and the members of your Bureau on your election as officers of the Commission this year.</p>

<p>Today, at this second, a baby girl is being born somewhere in the world. She is being born to a mother who is undernourished. The mother herself is young, 18 years old. It is likely that the baby is stunted in height and low in weight, even though she was born at full term.</p>

<p>Today, 9 March 2004, at the conclusion of the two-day meeting, “Cairo and Beyond: Reproductive Rights and Culture”, organized by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, and the Netherlands Government, we reaffirm our commitment and cooperation to implement the Programme of Action that was adopted at the International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994.</p>