The 2014 conference was developed around the metaphor of a puzzle entitled ‘sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in a post-2015 world’. We invited colleagues and friends to come over to Madrid and look at different ‘pieces’ of this puzzle: the lessons learnt from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Beijing and Cairo’s experiences, policy areas that are increasingly attracting funding, specific topics that risk falling from the global development agenda, the power games going on at UN level, the role of the European Union, the means of implementation and opportunities and difficulties that civil society faces.