About

Courage Chronicles:

Women Who Transformed the Global Agenda

“History Inspiring Activism”

In 1994, a coalition of women from the Global South and Global North achieved a foundational 20th-century victory for women’s rights at the United Nation’s International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD ’94). They secured a Programme of Action that established a new paradigm for world governments and agencies to use to address global “development” and “population growth.” They replaced the focus on “population control” with a blueprint focusing on women’s empowerment and reproductive health and rights—ideas that were radical at global policy levels in 1994. They continued on to the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, where they negotiated for, and secured, the inclusion of policy language on sexual health and rights. (This policy framework is referred to in “shorthand” as sexual and reproductive health and rights or SRHR.)

Background

In the 1980s and 1990s, women’s leaders from the Global South and North engaged in an extraordinary transnational collaboration. They were change-makers in movements for democracy, women’s health and rights, service provision, and the environment in their own countries of the Global South and North.  

      Their goal was to replace the UN’s “population control” paradigm, then dominating the expenditure of multi-millions for “population and development” programs world-wide. Shaped by the science of demography, and a concern for a so-called population “time bomb,” these programs viewed women as “targets,” excluded adolescents and men, and sometimes engaged in egregious practices decried by women’s movements in numerous countries.   

      They aligned to envision and draft a governing policy that that would instead center on the human rights and health of women and girls, and to negotiate with UN member governments to adopt it at the ICPD 94 and the Fourth World Conference on Women, ‘95.

      Leaders and their organizations convened or attended numerous dialogues over the years to develop their vision and build consensus.  They developed the definition and components of reproductive and sexual health and rights and related services; gathered data and evidence; built the political will for their vision; and engaged in world-class strategies to succeed.  Some were members of the “Women’s Lobby” and HERA (Health Empowerment and Rights).  Some ultimately represented NGOS or served on government delegations at ICPD ’94 and the Fourth World Conference on Women, ‘95. 

Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Womens’ Success at ICPD ’94!

We launched Courage Chronicles on March 14, 2024 at UNFPA’s ICPD 30: An Intergenerational Feminist Dialogue, a special reception during the Commission on the Status of Women. We were invited to prepare this video, focusing on the paradigm shift achieved at ICPD ’94; how a transnational alliance of women achieved it; its relevance today; and the current backlash.

An Evolving Project

Three more interviews are being curated for inclusion on this site. More project assets are in development.  However, many women were involved in this coalition and this project is seeking funding to interview them. 

Courage Chronicles was created to:

1. Preserve the history of this campaign through the voices and records of key leaders;

2. Publish them in accessible chapters, in a free, searchable, digital format.

3. Provide content to engage and encourage activists, leaders and researchers today:

      · why narrators  became activists;

      · the strategies they used to effect change in their own countries or regions and in the preparations for ICPD’94 and the          Fourth World Conference on Women.

      · why the “population control” ethos had to change;

      · their or their organization’s intellectual contributions to the components of  the SRHR framework;

      · the impacts of the new Programme of Action;

      · moving forward in the midst of a backlash and new challenges.

4. Provide access to original documents supporting the need for SRHR, drafted prior to 1995, which have been largely unavailable on the internet, as they were written before it existed.

Methodology

Leaders were invited to participate in the project and engaged in advance dialogue to set the content and terms.  

      Transcripts were fact-checked and lightly copy edited for flow, clarity, accuracy, and sense. They are nearly verbatim copies of the recorded interview, and as such may contain the natural false starts, verbal stumbles, misspeaks, and repetitions that are common in conversation. The films and transcripts were curated into chapters with titles and most remain in the sequence in which the conversation occurred.

Scope and Content

Courage Chronicles: Women Who Transformed the Global Agenda was funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and is a project of Communication for Development and Change, a 501(C0(3). It includes accounts of individuals throughout the world whose work made important contributions to the creation of the transformational Programme of Action that was adopted by governments at the International Conference for Population and Development, held in Cairo, Egypt in 1994 and at the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China in 1995. This web content includes filmed videos of narrators, video transcriptions, and other information compiled by this project.

Dates of Materials

• Creation: 2014-2024

Creator

• Jane Ordway, Project Founder and Director; and Board Member of Communication for Development and Change 501(c)(3)

Conditions Governing Use/Copyright

Communication for Development and Change owns copyright to all of the web content, except for certain documents in the Publications section, where other copyright holders are noted.

       The content on the Website, including transcripts, documents, videos, photos, sounds, music, and the like (collectively, the “Content”), and is made available for research purposes only and not for commercial use. These stories are brought to life by Jane Ordway, as told to her during private interviews with each narrator and web text is authored by her. Communication for Development and Change maintains the copyright to the Content on the Website. 

© Copyright 2024 by Communication for Development and Change. All rights reserved.

Requests for permission to excerpt quotations or text should be addressed to the Courage Chronicles: Women Who Transformed the Global Agenda.

The initial funding for this project came from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to global health expert Judith Frye Helzner, who facilitated the first grant to this project from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation when she was the Director of the Population & Reproductive Health. That grant made initiating this work possible.

–Jane Ordway 2024