CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS RECOMMEND ACTIONS TO SPEED PROGRESS TOWARDS GOALS OF 1994 CAIRO CONFERENCE
Press Release
POP/699
CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS RECOMMEND ACTIONS TO SPEED PROGRESS TOWARDS GOALS OF 1994 CAIRO CONFERENCE
19990209 Countries Need To Live Up to their Commitments to Young People, Hillary Rodham Clinton Tells Gathering of NGOs Lawmakers and YouthTHE HAGUE, 8 February (UNFPA) -- The world's young people will be hurt the most if governments do not keep the funding and policy promises they made five years ago at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), United States First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton said here yesterday. Since the ICPD, policy-makers "have finally started talking with young people, instead of just talking about youth", she said.
Ms. Clinton was addressing a joint session of the NGO Forum and Youth Forum on ICPD+5, and the International Forum of Parliamentarians on ICPD Review. All three sessions were organized to provide input to the Hague Forum, which opens here today at the Netherlands Congress Centre.
As their advance meetings at the Netherlands Congress Centre concluded, the representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and youth groups issued recommendations on actions needed to facilitate implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action.
Non-governmental organizations, Ms. Clinton said, had now taken their rightful place at the tables where decisions were made about delivering services and meeting human needs. She challenged participants to forge stronger links with one another, keep sharing their experiences, and reach out to fathers, sons and husbands in seeking better lives for women.
She left the conference Sunday night to attend the funeral of Jordan's King Hussein, but said she would return Tuesday to deliver her keynote speech, originally scheduled for today.
At the closing session of the NGO and Youth Forums, Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said she was pleased overall with world progress towards ICPD goals. Significant policy changes have occurred "in almost every country", she said, citing South Africa's incorporation of reproductive rights into its Constitution and recent decisions in Senegal and in several other sub-Saharan countries to outlaw
female genital mutilation. Non-governmental organizations, she said, "continue to be strong advocates of difficult issues" to their governments, and their role is steadily increasing.
Some 600 participants, representing 140 activist groups from throughout the world took part in the NGO Forum. The meeting was convened by the World Population Foundation of the Netherlands, guided by a steering committee made up of leaders from a broad variety of organizations in the women's health and rights and population fields.
The NGO Forum held sessions on key issues: resources and putting commitments into action; reproductive health services; human and reproductive rights; the interrelationship of poverty, development, environment and reproductive health; and partnerships among governments, the private sector and civil society, and at local, national, regional and international levels. Each session discussed recent successes, current problems, and actions needed now.
The report on the outcome of the NGO Forum was presented to the joint session by Mahmoud Fathalla, former chair of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics and an NGO Forum Advisory Board member. He cited three indicators of progress:
-- Momentum is growing worldwide for the idea that women are "ends and not means, subjects, not objects".
-- World silence on sexual matters has been broken, so that discussion can be more open on sensitive matters, such as unsafe abortion and female genital mutilation. Divergent views on unsafe abortion must be respected, "but you cannot keep the issue under the carpet when 20 million women every year are victims of this violence".
-- Partnerships among governments, NGOs and the private sector are working, so that each sees the "value added" of working with the others.
Mr. Fathalla said he remained concerned about "the widening gap" between developing nations' spending for reproductive health and population programs, now at 70 per cent of the level agreed to at the ICPD, and donor nations' spending, at only 25 per cent of their agreed share. Donor nations must see that this was "an investment they cannot afford not to make", he said.
Lis Hirano, a Brazilian architect, reported from the Youth Forum that the gathering of 132 people under age 30 from 111 nations had asked for specific youth-oriented commitments from the Hague Forum: life-skill training outside formal institutions of education; a parallel "United Nations for Youth" organization to foster sharing of resources; national budget allocations for youth projects, especially health concerns; and programmes to foster tolerance
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and curb violence. Her presentation was followed by a five-minute video, "Room to Grow", produced by independent United States filmmaker Martin Lucas.
Speaking earlier, in the same session as Ms. Clinton, Nicolaas Biegman, Netherlands ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), said that since the ICPD, some previously taboo issues related to reproductive health and sexuality could now be discussed seriously. Although the 1994 Conference reaffirmed that couples and individuals have the right to decide freely on the number and spacing of their children, many people worldwide still lack the information and services needed to exercise their right to free choice.
Anwarul Karim Chowdhury, Bangladesh's ambassador to the United Nations, said NGOs can provide services to groups that governments find difficult to reach, including the rural and urban poor. Their independence also makes them effective advocates.
At a panel on partnerships at the joint session of the parliamentarians, NGOs and youth, Momar Lo, a lawmaker from Senegal, called for stepped up efforts to raise public awareness of the ICPD agreements. Radical positions that could weaken the chances of reaching consensus should be avoided, he said. Population and development activists seem "in danger of regressing into a kind of sectarianism ... talking to ourselves in ever decreasing circles", said Rachel Kyte of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. "No one group has a monopoly on the truth", she added.
Jelena Zajeganovic of the International Federation of Medical Students' Associations, said that health services should be designed with the input of young people themselves. Investment in the reproductive health of the young will reduce abortions, unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, and reduce deaths from childbirth and save large amounts of money that would otherwise be needed for medical treatment.
The findings of the NGO and Youth Forums and of the 4 to 6 February parliamentarians' meeting will be presented today to the Hague Forum, at which 180 governments will review progress since the ICPD with regard to reproductive health care and women's empowerment, and identify priorities for further action.
The UNFPA-organized Hague Forum is intended to inform the process leading up to a 30 June to 2 July special session of the United Nations General Assembly reviewing ICPD implementation. Findings from the forum will be summarized in a report that will be presented to the Commission on Population and Development when it meets from 24 to 31 March as the preparatory committee for the special session.
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For more information contact,
In the Hague:
Corrie Shanahan (email: shanahan@unfpa.org), Abubakar Dungus (email: dungus@unfpa.org), William A. Ryan (email: ryan@unfpa.org); telephone: +31-70-306-5716/5717/5719; fax: +31-70-306-5737/5738
In New York:
Brian Kelly (email: kelly@unfpa.org); telephone: (212) 297-5023; fax: (212) 557-6416
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