The 47th session of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD) took place from 7 - 11 April at the United Nations Head Quarters in New York. It is one of the last steps in the ICPD programme of action review process before the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on ICPD beyond 2014 in September this year.

This year’s CPD Bureau was chaired by Uruguay, with vice-chairpersons from Denmark, Japan, Georgia and Senegal and the theme was "Assessment of the status of implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development".

The Sri Lankan delegation for the 47^th CPD consisted of Dr. Palitha G. Mahipala (Director General of Health Services, Ministry of Health Sri Lanka), Ms Vasana Jayakody (Deputy Director, Department of Census and Statistics) and Ms. Madusha Dissanayake (Director Advocacy & HIV/AIDS, FPA Sri Lanka) representing the government and Mr. Dakshitha Wickremaratne (Secretary of the Youth Technical Advisory Committee [Y-TAC], FPA Sri Lanka) representing the Civil Society. They also presented the written statement of the GoSL for this session. (Access the country statement here)

There was a general debate on national experiences, discussion on the annual ministerial review, and the future programme of work. The final outcome of this CPD was a Resolution that was adopted by the Nations & Observer States.

CPD was established in 1946 as the Population Commission and renamed in 1994 as the Commission on Population and Development. The Commission assists the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to monitor, review and assess the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action at the national, regional and international levels.