| The IFFD Briefing has been held at the UN Headquarters in New York for the past four years. This year it was also organized during the Session of the Commission for Social Development.
The first (2013). and second (2014). editions of the IFFD Briefing were devoted to the preparations and celebrations of the 20th Anniversary of the International Year of the Family. The third one (2015). dealt with the need for families to be part of the Sustainable Development Goals. This edition was focused on three of the Goals adopted last September by more than 150 world leaders as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They have to do with families and specially to one of the Targets of each one of them: Active ageing and the right to health
Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. Target 3.8. Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.The role of cohesive families in inclusive and equitable education Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Target 4.2. By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education.Gender equality in parenting education Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Target 5.4. Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate. As usual, the two IFFD Family Awards were presented during the event to the person and entity distinguished by the promotion of family values during the past year. There was also be a presentation of the final Declaration approved by the 19th IFFD International Congress held in Mexico City last October and a presentation of the project on the definition of Global Family Wellbeing Indicators. |
| Full programme and background note in PDF format … |
Opening Speech
The 19th International Family Congress
Mario Armella and Viviana Gutiérrez
Presidents of LAR – Family Enrichment (Mexico).
1,836 delegates from 43 countries attended the 19th International Family Congress, organized by the International Federation for Family Development in Mexico City, 16-18 October 2015, to emphasize that families have a crucial role in social development and to confirm our commitment to help families worldwide and to contribute to universal peace and respect of human rights through our Family Enrichment Courses and other programmes. The Congress was a resounding success and LAR, the Mexican branch of IFFD, were in charge of organizing it.
They approved a final Declaration with the goals of empowering families by promoting the integration of a family perspective, focusing poverty alleviation strategies on the family as a unit, develop and improve family-friendly policies and practices in the workplace, developing active measures to support the psychological well-being of children and youth, acknowledging and encouraging the responsibility of fathers and the contribution of men to families and facilitating intergenerational care and support.
Presentations
Lessons Learnt from Family Policies in Brazil
Paulo Tominaga
Director of Institutional Relations of the Confederação Nacional das Entidades de Família (Brazil).
Dr. Tominaga is Director of Institutional Relations of the CNEF (Brazil National Confederation of Family Entities)., Master in Computer Science (UNB, Brazil)., Specialist in Personal Development and Family (UEPG, Brazil)., Specialist in Political Science (ILB / Federal Senate of Brazil)., with a degree in Electrical Engineering (Unicamp, Brazil). and Law (UNB, Brazil). Develops activities in the Third Sector for over 25 years. The last 15 years has focused the activities in the area of Family Development, participating and promoting courses, seminars and conferences in Brazil. Having the theme focus on family, participated in international events held in the United States, Turkey and Spain.
CNEF (Confederação Nacional das Entidades de Família – National Confederation of Family Entities). is a civil association, nonprofit, founded in 2006, based in Brasília, Brazil, which brings together people, institutions and companies to promote integrated actions in order to ensure effectively assistance to the family and its members. The organization works with political and government agencies as a representative of the interests of its members. Thus seeks to collaborate in the formulation of public policies and implementing actions in the social assistance area, with a view to protection of the family, marriage, motherhood, childhood, adolescence and old age, among other issues related to family. CNEF encourages education and the role of citizens in favor of family development and promotion of the dignity of its members.
Active Ageing and Right to Health
Giuseppe Pozzi
Vice President of FederAnziani and President of Corte di Giustizia Popolare per il diritto alla salute (Italy).
Giuseppe Pozzi, surgeon, specialist in mini-invasive surgery, is Vice President of Fondazione Senior Italia – FederAnziani and President of the Popular Court of Justice for right to Health, national organization by FederAnziani acting with the aim of protecting the right to health of citizens. Speaker in national and international conferences, is President and Co-founder of FederAnziani Solidarietà, a charity involved in improving life’s quality of Africa local communities.
Federanziani is a non-profit organization founded in 2006, with the aim to protect the rights and promote the quality of life of older people. It operates nationally with the primary purpose to federate all those who are concerned with the protection of social, health, economic integration of elderly subjects. Federanziani Promotes collaboration with the Federations of the member countries of the European Union. FederAnziani counts among its associated, about 3.500 centers for elderly people in Italy, with over 3,4 milions people belonging to its network.
Parenting Types and their Consequences
Rt. Hon. Charles Osezua
Founder and President of the Institute for Work and Family Integration (Nigeria).
Charles A. Osezua, a professional engineer, an educator and a business man. He is the founder and Chairman of the Institute for Work and Family Integration (IWFI).; a non-profit organization focusing on issues of work-family interface. Charles is a distinguished gas engineer, honoured by his country, for his contribution to the development of the natural gas industry, and pioneering effort of the gas utility industry in Nigeria, as an Officer Order of the Niger (OON). Charles is a Papal Knight, haven been honoured by Pope Benedict XVI as a Knight of St. Gregory the Great, for his various contributions to the growth of the Catholic Church in Nigeria. He is the Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Pan Atlantic University (PAU)., and also the Chairman of the Owel-Linkso Group. He is married to Lady Gloria Osezua, and they are blessed with six children and five grand-children.
The Institute for Work and Family Integration (IWFI). is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization (NGO). A research training and advocacy institution with the aim of finding solution to conflicts occasioned the socio-demographic shifts in the workplace with a view to creating Better Families, Better Businesses, and Better Society.
IFFD 2016 Family Awards Ceremony
Ignacio Torras and Isabel Lombana
Government of the Republic of Estonia
on behalf of the Estonian Government.
Conclusion
Definition of Global Family Well-being Indicators
Keiko Hirao
Professor in the Graduate School of Environmental Studies at Sophia University (Japan).
Prof. Hirao teaches at the Graduate School of Environmental Studies at Sophia University in Japan, and is a Visiting Scholar in Sociology at Harvard for academic year 2015-16. She is a sociologist specializing in the intersections among family, education and work. Her main research interests include gender stratification, intergenerational relations, human capital development, and sustainable lifestyles. She joined the Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies in 2009, after having taught at the Department of Philosophical Anthropology for ten years. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of Child Rearing War Front (Chobunsha, 1991, in Japanese). and chapters in Political Economy of Japan’s Low Fertility (Frances Rosenbluth ed., Stanford University Press, 2006)., Women’s Working Lives in East Asia (Mary Brinton ed., Stanford University Press, 2001)., Working and Mothering: Images, Ideologies and Identities (Theresa W. Devasahayam and Brenda S.A. Yeoh eds., NIAS Press,2007)., and Thinking Body as Intelligence (Mamoru Suzuki ed., Gakken Marketing, 2014). Her recent book, Invisible Hand and Invisible Heart is forthcoming from Sophia University Press.
She is part of the Design Team for the project ‘Making Families a Cornerstone in Policymaking: A Global Guide for Policymakers on Family Impact’. The aim of this project is to encourage policymakers to view issues through the lens of family impact, to incorporate family considerations into their jobs, and to take steps to build better public policies for families.
| Background note
|
| At the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on 25 September 2015, more than 150 world leaders adopted the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals. The United Nations Development Programme will support governments around the world in tackling the new agenda and taking it forward over the next 15 years.
The 17 new Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the Global Goals, aim to end poverty, hunger and inequality, take action on climate change and the environment, improve access to health and education, build strong institutions and partnerships, and more. The SDGs build on the Millennium Development Goals, eight anti-poverty targets that the world committed to achieving by 2015. Since the MDGs were adopted in 2000, enormous progress has been made, but more needs to be done. The SDGs have a more ambitious agenda, seeking to eliminate rather than reduce poverty, and include more demanding targets on health, education and gender equality. They are universal, applying to all countries and all people. The agenda also includes issues that were not in the MDGs such as climate change, sustainable consumption, innovation and the importance of peace and justice for all. “As basic and essential building blocks of societies, families have a crucial role in social development. They bear the primary responsibility for the education and socialization of children as well as instilling values of citizenship and belonging in the society. Families provide material and non-material care and support to its members, from children to older persons or those suffering from illness, sheltering them from hardship to the maximum possible extent. The very achievement of development goals depends on how well families are empowered to contribute to the achievement of those goals. Thus, policies focusing on improving the well-being of families are certain to benefit development.” (cfr. A/66/62-E/2011/4). Consequently, to most effectively reach the SDGs, we are arguing that “we will have to do a better job in leaving no family behind.” In that spirit, we suggest to take into account the following aspects: 1. Child Poverty. The new promising approach to child poverty is two-generation approaches. Instead of focusing in children and parents individually, a family approach will be used that simultaneously provides high-quality programs for children and their parents. 2. Population Ageing. Active ageing allows people to realize their potential for physical, social, and mental wellbeing throughout the life course and to participate in society, while providing them with adequate protection, security and care when they need it. 3. Healthy Lives. Research shows that a family-centered approach to health care can improve the quality of care and help curb rising costs, from prevention to chronic care. 4. Quality Education. When policies and programs are family-focused, they often are an efficient investment of public resources for promoting youth school success and an effective means for achieving lifelong learning. 5. Unpaid Domestic Work and Care. Household production constitutes an important aspect of economic activity and ignoring it may lead to incorrect inferences about levels and changes in well-being. 6. Domestic Violence. Gender equality and gender stereotypes, like many other values and norms, are learned in the family, and it is there where it should be first prevented. 7. Youth Unemployment. Our societies are unable of integrating young people, leading to situations which cause young people to stop looking for a job or to work in unsuitable conditions. |
More videos
IFFD’s statement at the 54th Session of the Commission for Social Development (8 February).
Initial speech by Ignacio Socías, Director of International Relations at IFFD, during the Panel Discussion on ‘Work-Family Balance, Social Development, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ organized by the Permanent Mission of Qatar to the United Nations and Doha International Family Institute at United Nations Headquarters (9 February).
Audios
IFFD’s oral statement at the 54th Session of the Commission for Social Development (8 February) …
Documents
IFFD’s written statement for the 54th Session of the Commission for Social Development (English) …
IFFD’s written statement for the 54th Session of the Commission for Social Development (French) …
IFFD’s written statement for the 54th Session of the Commission for Social Development (Spanish) …
IFFD’s oral statement at the 54th Session of the Commission for Social Development (8 February) …
Gallery
(click on a pic to see it in high definition).:
IFFD Briefing:
