PRESS CONFERENCE BY UNITED NATIONS POPULATION FUND

8 January 1997

Press Briefing

19970108 FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY

At a Headquarters press conference Tuesday, two United Nations Volunteers, Delia Buratto of France and Bhagwan Shrestha of Nepal, were presented the United Nations Population Fund/United Nations Volunteers Award for distinguished work in the field of population. The award, a one-time event to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the United Nations Volunteers, consists of a certificate of appreciation and a monetary prize of $2,500 to be given by the UNFPA to a population programme of the winner's choice. (For more background, see Press Release POP/631 of 7 January.)

In presenting the awards, the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Dr. Nafis Sadik, said it was a tribute to all United Nations Volunteers who work "so well and tirelessly in the field of development and population". Also presenting, the Executive Coordinator of United Nations Volunteers, Brenda Gael McSweeney, said the two Volunteers receiving the awards "represent and embody the idealism, dedication and professionalism of the 4,000 United Nations Volunteers who serve annually".

Ms. Buratto was honoured for her work in Zimbabwe during the last three years in such areas as population education in schools and in pioneering population studies and training in the university. She also organized the first Executive Committee meeting of the Africa and Middle East Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development.

Mr. Shrestha was recognized for his contribution in the health and population sectors in Guyana for the last nine years, particularly with the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association. He was instrumental in training a range of personnel, including community leaders, in information, education, communication and counselling. Among other activities, he was involved in supervising clinics and community field activities for family planning promotion for sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS prevention, and for the expansion of reproductive health services.

Before presenting the award, Dr. Sadik said the award was given in recognition of the contribution that United Nations Volunteers had made to the UNFPA programmes, and in recognition of how closely different organizations in the United Nations system worked with each other. She congratulated Ms. McSweeney for the excellent work the United Nations Volunteers had been doing under her leadership.

Elaborating on the work of United Nations Volunteers with UNFPA, Ms. McSweeney said they worked to expand training, to ensure reproductive health and to contribute towards reaching the goals of the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). The ICPD had "shifted the focus of population policy from the macro picture to the lives of individuals and towards a people-centred approach, that is typical of Volunteer work with UNFPA".

Ms. McSweeney said each year some 50 United Nations Volunteer specialists contributed to UNFPA's work in public health, demography and census taking, among other areas, and that cooperation could be even further strengthened. "The very powerful examples of the work of Ms. Buratto and Mr. Shrestha could be multiplied by the hundreds to reach even more people across the continents", she said. "We are very much convinced that teams of international and national United Nations Volunteers' talent, working with UNFPA, are a professional and cost-effective means to spread the Fund's message and to implement population strategies upon which the future of the globe depends."

Following the presentation of the awards, Ms. Buratto said she considered the award a recognition of the impact that she hoped she had made during the past four years on population action and thinking in Zimbabwe and even beyond, especially in the field of population education, information and advocacy.

She said she would donate the monetary prize to the Population Studies Programme in Zimbabwe -- the first demographic training programme in that country -- which had started in 1990 and had produced an average of 7 to 10 demographers per year. They were the first Zimbabwean-trained demographers, who were now in demand in the country and in the region. The programme was now the strongest in that region and was presently trying to attract foreign students.

Welcoming the award, Mr. Shrestha said he was grateful that the UNFPA and United Nations Volunteers had made the award for his contributions in Guyana. His focus had been on community health and population education programmes. He had worked in the 10 regions of the country, including the hinterlands, with the various ethnic groups there -- Afro- and Indo-Guyanese, and Guyanese of Portuguese descent. Other United Nations Volunteers would be encouraged and inspired by the award. His monetary prize would be donated to the Information, Education and Communication Division of the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association and the Guyanese Ministry of Health.

Asked about population policy in Zimbabwe, including the country's growth rate, Ms. Buratto said Zimbabwe's population growth had declined to 3.1 per cent per annum, which was a target set for 1995. However, that growth rate was still above the economic growth rate of 2.1 per cent per annum. The emphasis of the country's population policy was geared to bringing the population and economic growth rates in line with each other. The Zimbabwean National Family Planning Council had set a target of "below 3 per cent" population growth rate by the year 2000.

Dr. Sadik added that in Zimbabwe the mortality rates had declined dramatically, but fertility rates were still high and it was important for Zimbabweans to obtain access to family planning services. An increase in abortions meant that there was a demand for family planning services, yet such services were not reaching the entire population. The Zimbabwe Government had been giving special attention to improving the access to such services of people living in the dispersed rural areas. More domiciliary and extension-type services were needed and as many distribution systems as possible should be used to ensure effective outreach.

A correspondent asked how many United Nations Volunteers worked in the population field. Ms. McSweeney said about 50 of them worked in that field annually, specifically with the UNFPA's sponsored programmes and with UNFPA partner agencies, such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and International Labour Organisation (ILO). Other Volunteers worked in humanitarian programmes, peace-keeping and the community-focused and technical assistance programmes. Many of the United Nations Volunteers were supporting the population strategy themes -- the post-Cairo themes. In addition, there was increased United Nations Volunteers' partnership with UNFPA in humanitarian work, in refugee camps, as well as in countries experiencing crisis situations.

Dr. Sadik added that governments were becoming more interested in United Nations Volunteers because the quality of their work was high, while at the same time they cost less than, for example, an international expert. Many Volunteers could be hired for the cost of one such expert. In several countries the UNFPA would be increasing the use of volunteers in the population field. Ms. McSweeney said that the average age of the United Nations Volunteer was now "a young 40 years old".

Mr. Shrestha was asked if his experience in his own country, Nepal, could be compared to the situation in Guyana, in particular to possible resistance to seeking population and health services. Mr. Shrestha said in Nepal he had worked as a training official in the family planning, maternal and child-health project for about nine years, and had been a University lecturer teaching family life education and community health programmes to paramedical staff and medical students. He had also monitored and supervised health workers. All of that experience had been very relevant to the needs in Guyana. When he went to Guyana in 1988 it was not very different from Nepal. The difficulties that the family planning and population education programmes faced, the remoteness of many areas of Guyana, and the existence of diseases, such as malaria, were comparable with the problems in Nepal.

Although the Guyanese population was below 1 million, the quality of life was not good, he continued. As a result, family planning education had been very important. His contributions in the area of environmental problems and maternal and child health were welcomed. His strategy focused on group dynamics, by which he involved the community members in dialogue about the problems they faced. By discussing their problems, the people themselves would try to improve their quality of life through family planning.

There was not much difference culturally between his country and Guyana, he continued. He had enjoyed carrying out the programme there and had received a lot of help from the people of Guyana. Recently, he had also made some contribution to developing training materials for supervising and monitoring health workers and had made recommendations for developing a three-year training programme for the period 1996-1998.

* *** *