BRIEFING BY COMMISSION ON POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Press Briefing

BRIEFING BY COMMISSION ON POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT

At a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon, United Nations Member States were urged to begin their preparations for the fifth-year review of the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), scheduled for a special session of the General Assembly in 1999.

Raj Karim (Malaysia), Chairmen of the thirty-first session of the Commission on Population and Development, which will conclude tomorrow, said that such early preparation was necessary "because in the end, the real success of the ICPD would depend on what countries have done, and can do, in order to achieve the goals set up by the ICPD". She noted that the Commission had spent a lot of time discussing the preparatory process for that review, as presented by the Population Division and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Concerning the Commission's substantive business, she stressed that the current session's theme of "health and mortality" was important for people the world over, especially in the developing countries, where infant and child mortality was still very high and resources were required to reduce the high differentials, not only within regions, but between and within countries. With that in mind, the Commission convened a technical forum to discuss the technical areas of the subject and examine them as they affected developed and developing countries, especially the African, European, Eastern European and Asian regions.

Ms. Karim said the Commission was also concerned with the changing patterns of disease in many countries, the emergence of new diseases such as HIV/AIDS, as well as the re-emergence of some that had disappeared in some countries, but were reappearing because of such factors as migration or travel. Further, in the course of the Commission's work this week, individual countries also spoke of their problems and their initiatives aimed at providing basic health services for all, as well as reducing maternal, infant and adult morbidity and mortality.

Robert Cliquet (Belgium), a Vice-Chairman of the Commission, who had been conducting the informal consultations, said it was difficult to report on the activities and results of those consultations while they were still going on. The first concern was the preparations for the fifth-year review and appraisal of the ICPD. The second issue was the theme of the session: health and mortality. The emphasis of the draft resolution being prepared was on data collection and analysis, but he did not know the exact form they would take.

The Director of the Population Division, Joseph Chamie, who moderated the briefing, remarked that the issue of health and mortality enjoyed universal consensus, as everyone wished to have good health and long life. It

was a priority, therefore, for both governments and intergovernmental bodies within the United Nations system. In the past 50 years, mortality rates had dropped and life expectancy had risen in every region of the world.

Mr. Chamie also pointed out "unacceptable differentials" in mortality for infants, children, mothers and adults. They persisted among subgroups within many countries and concern for those differentials led to the setting of goals or targets in the Programme of Action at the ICPD. The deliberations and conclusions at the thirty-first session would constitute a significant contribution to future intergovernmental discussions, negotiations and decisions relating to health and mortality.

To a question as to what the declines and reversals in life expectancy in certain areas of the world could be attributed, and whether the trend was likely to continue, Mr. Cliquet replied that, in the case of the countries in transition, the regression occurred before the economic transition, accelerating -- in some cases -- at the moment of the economic transition. That, he explained, might have been because of the collapse of the security system that existed. It might also have been due to some psychological consequences following the major societal changes.

He said two major hypotheses or theories had been developed about the reversals: one concerned risky behaviour in those countries, such as smoking and behaviour resulting in accidents; the other concerns the high-fat diet in those countries. In recent years, there seemed to be an improvement in the situation in a number of countries, he added.

Mr. Chamie stressed that without specific information on mortality -- classified by age, death, cause of death, sex and other variables -- it was difficult to come up with answers to those hypotheses.

Asked why the reversals seemed to be affecting males more than females, Mr. Cliquet said different explanations were given in scientific quarters. Answers were, therefore, as varied as the background of the scientist, from the fact that males were more active in life, to their predisposition to risk- taking.

Also responding to that issue, Ms. Karim said that in most parts of the world, life expectancy of males was lower than that of females, owing to a combination of many factors -- environmental, sociological and biological. Concerning the environmental factors, men were more exposed to the external environments and to industrial and occupational problems that might cause deaths. Women also had a natural protective mechanism in their hormones and their hearts.

She pointed out that stress was a factor appearing in many developing countries, which was due to the adjustment required between traditional

Population Briefing - 3 - 26 February 1998

lifestyles in the rural areas and the pressures of modern lifestyles in the urban areas. That was an area that was often overlooked, as people were not prepared to live the stressful lifestyle associated with urbanization. "Today you have to cope with the pressures of a nuclear family and of a job, which causes a lot of premature deaths among men", she said.

A correspondent asked if the Commission was asking governments to pay more attention to public education on those aspects of health and mortality that could be corrected, when there were options on what to do. Ms. Karim said the Commission had deliberated on it. Members had talked a lot about lifestyle diseases, both in the technical symposia and in the papers presented to it by the Population Division. One of the important areas mentioned by many national delegations was public awareness and education.

Mr. Cliquet said that at the symposium in Belgium, attention had been drawn to the conflict between individual rights and societal responsibility. "We were pleading for governments to influence, via education and information, their populations, so that they can take informed decisions, so that they know that particular risky behaviours such as smoking, fast driving and particular diets had particular consequences, not only immediately, but after decades", he said.

The fear, he continued, was that the same mistakes might be made in the developing countries, which were modernizing now and were assuming particular forms of behaviour that were typical of the modernization process. "We could have avoided, and we can avoid, considerable morbidity and mortality by taking into account the knowledge we have about developing a healthy life, and we know a lot about the interventions that can be undertaken", he said.

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