NEED TO MOBILIZE RESOURCES TO IMPLEMENT CAIRO PROGRAMME OF ACTION STRESSED BY SPEAKERS AT POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION

24 March 1999

Press Release
POP/714

NEED TO MOBILIZE RESOURCES TO IMPLEMENT CAIRO PROGRAMME OF ACTION STRESSED BY SPEAKERS AT POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION

19990324 Anwarul Chowdhury (Bangladesh) Elected Chairman of Commission As Preparatory Body for Assembly Session on Implementation of Cairo Outcome

Realizing the goals of the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) demanded intensive mobilization of resources by the international community, the Commission on Population and Development was told this morning as it began its session as the preparatory committee for the special session of the General Assembly to review implementation of the Cairo outcome.

Insufficient resources had impeded optimum implementation of the Programme of Action, the representative of Guyana stressed, on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China. The Assembly's review should address that shortfall, as well as the alarming trend towards decreased external resource flows. Financial resources underpinned the goals and objectives of the Conference's Programme of Action, yet the target of $5.7 billion in external resources by the year 2000 was expected to fall short by more than half that amount.

Also underscoring the critical role of the donor community in financing population activities, the representative of Bangladesh warned that without adequate resources, implementation of the population Programme of Action would falter. Given the responsibility of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for supporting national-level implementation, increased financial commitment to the Fund was also a must. In preparing for the special session, the world community must renew its commitment for the long journey ahead.

The German representative, speaking on behalf of the European Union and associated countries, agreed on the urgent need to mobilize international resources, which should be geared towards assisting the poor. Population assistance should increase according to the scope and scale of population

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activities. All the actors involved had a shared responsibility to make effective use of available resources in order to achieve maximum impact.

Indeed, the barriers to implementing the population Action Programme included political, economic, cultural and financial factors, the Chinese representative said. Only effective work and international cooperation would break those down. Stabilization of China's population was not only critical to its own development, but also to the stabilization of the world's population.

The representative of India said that concerted efforts were required to eradicate poverty and sustain economic growth in developing countries. Those efforts, in turn, required a supportive international economic environment. There was an urgent need for developing countries, with the assistance of the international community, to guarantee a minimum level of consumption for their citizens, especially the poor and disadvantaged.

Statements were also made by the representatives of Japan, Kazakhstan, Republic of Korea, Brazil and Indonesia.

Introductory statements were made by Joseph Chamie, Director of the Population Division; Kerstin Trone, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on behalf of Nicolaas Biegman, President of The Hague Forum; and Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of UNFPA.

Also this morning, Anwarul Chowdhury was elected Chairman of the Commission acting as preparatory committee for the special session. Elza Berquo (Brazil), Ross Hynes (Canada), Armi Heinonen (Finland), Jack Inilmot (Ghana), Gabriella Vukovich (Hungary), Patricia Durrant (Jamaica), Alexandru Miculescu (Romania), Jotham Musinguzi (Uganda) and Ryu Yamazaki (Japan) were elected Vice-Chairmen. Ms. Vukovich was selected to also serve as Rapporteur.

The Commission will meet again at 3 p.m. today to continue its preparations for the special session of the General Assembly on implementation of the Cairo Programme of Action.

Commission Work Programme

The Commission on Population and Development met this morning to begin its session as the preparatory committee for the special session of the General Assembly to review implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development. (For background information, see Press Release POP/709 of 18 March.)

Statements

JOSEPH CHAMIE, Director of the Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, introduced the report of the Secretary-General on the review and appraisal of the progress made in achieving the goals and objectives of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) (document E/CN.9/1999/PC/2). He said the current period was demographically unprecedented in the history of humanity. A revolution had been taking place that was not political and was not noticed as much as other revolutions. The quiet revolution was a demographic transition. That revolutionary transition from high rates of fertility and mortality to low rates had significantly altered every aspect of human existence on the planet. That transition, which began several centuries ago in Western Europe, continued to have an extraordinary impact today in every corner of the world.

The last half century had been demographically the most remarkable in human history, he added. Over the last 50 years there had been: the highest rate of world population growth; the largest annual increase in world population; the shortest period for the world to increase by one billion people; the most significant increase in the world's average life expectancy; the most rapid decreases in fertility -- from an average of six children in developing countries, to three children today; and the unparalleled growth of urban populations.

Overall progress had been made, though in varying degrees, towards reducing poverty rates, increasing food supplies and improving health and education, he said. Mortality in most countries had continued to fall since 1994 and reproductive health programmes had been established in many countries. Also, many countries, both sending and receiving, had taken important steps to manage migration flows through binational and multinational efforts.

However, in some regions, progress had been limited and setbacks had occurred, he said. Nearly 1.3 billion people were still classified as poor and the AIDS pandemic had led to rises in mortality in many countries. Also, the economic crisis had a major effect on the developing world. Major global conferences, such as the Cairo Conference, had encouraged a number of positive actions, but much remained to be done. Delaying today's needed action would

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exacerbate issues in the future, making them more difficult and costly to address. The decisions and actions taken today would determine the quality of life and living conditions for all generations to come.

KERSTIN TRONE, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), spoke on behalf of Nicolaas Biegman, President of The Hague Forum. She reported on three items which had received a lot of attention at the Forum, held from 8 to 12 February: youth, AIDS, and resources. She said the discussions in the Netherlands were rich and free from the controversy experienced in Cairo, indicating an overwhelming worldwide consensus on how to deal with the population problem.

This time, youth was everywhere, both physically and as a focus of attention, she said. Clearly, the 1.1 billion people between 15 and 24 years old -- the biggest mass of people ever -- were finding their voice and being recognized as a source of both opportunity and danger, primarily to themselves. Many of them were under-informed, under-educated and under-served in the field of sexual and reproductive health. That meant they were running a disproportionate risk of catching HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and of having unwanted pregnancies. Whatever could be done for them and by them in that regard would make a great difference for the rest of their lives and for the future of the planet. Ignorance and lack of protection could imply a death sentence.

The AIDS pandemic, she said, had grown to between 35 and 40 million people. Eleven people were being infected every minute. Apart from abstinence, the only known prevention was the condom. Was sex outside the home punishable by death? Was it fair for a monogamous woman to be infected by her unfaithful husband? It happened all the time. The incidence of HIV was 16 times higher in young girls than in young boys the same age, in a number of African countries. The financial, cultural and religious barriers to the distribution and use of condoms had to be torn down. The Hague document launched an appeal to Governments to fully realize their Cairo commitment, at least for the struggle against HIV/AIDS, which the preparatory committee would hopefully affirm.

She said that the subject of resources also received much attention at The Hague, as money was the main constraint of implementation. The Programme of Action required an estimated $17 billion per year. It would be tragic if a shortfall of $8.5 billion -- an insignificant amount in terms of global financial transactions -- would make such efforts a failure instead of a success. Yet, that amount seemed difficult to find. Developing countries had many competing claims on their meagre resources, and some of them had not yet fully realized that population and reproductive health was one of the best investments around, in purely economic terms.

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Continuing, she said the developed world had more and more rich countries with poor governments, as a diminishing proportion of resources flowed through government channels. Still, those would make an important contribution if they rearranged their priorities to spend 4 per cent of their existing official development assistance (ODA) on population; a target adopted at the Amsterdam Conference in 1989. The core funding for UNFPA also played a central role in implementation of the Action Programme.

Without relieving Governments of their financial responsibilities in that regard, other directions should be explored, she said. Perhaps, the private business sector could consider enhancing its contribution. Many companies wished to allocate resources on socially relevant causes, for the sake of those causes and to enhance their reputation as pillars of society. Support for population projects in developing countries and countries in transition was a very worthy cause for private businesses. That possibility deserved thorough examination during the next five years.

Dr. NAFIS SADIK, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said that countries had a strong record since 1994 in implementing the ICPD Programme of Action, and they were poised for success in meeting its goals.

Among the key achievements was the redefinition of the field of population, which transformed thinking about population and its relation to development, she said. Before Cairo, population was a concept rooted in demographics; today it was rooted in human rights, needs and choices. The ICPD accepted that reproductive health was a human right, and on that basis, population was universally recognized as part of the development agenda: the way to a balanced and sustainable level of population was through individual choices freely made by all.

Introducing the Secretary-General's report on key actions for further implementation of the Action Programme (document E/CD.9/1999/PC/4), she said that the report would assist the review, as it summarized progress, identified constrains and proposed action. The report did not attempt to cover the whole spectrum of development issues, however, but was part of the broader development agenda which had emerged from the series of international conferences held in this decade.

She drew attention to the report's discussion of the seriousness and extent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which was clearly not understood in 1994. New information had alerted both national governments and the international community to the need for prompt action. Emerging issues such as ageing were also claiming more attention now than at Cairo. The proposals for action were intended to be broadly acceptable, and as such, consensus should be reached at this meeting.

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The first concern of the proposals was to ensure that countries were equipped to meet challenges of a rapidly changing demographic picture, she said. Many developing countries and countries in transition were confronting a rapid increase in numbers of older people. At the same time, they were recognizing that young people represented a powerful resource for development, which could be mobilized to help meet the needs of an ageing population. Specific action was needed at both ends of the age scale.

In the economic sphere, related difficulties had had a disproportionate effect on the social sector, she went on. Lower public sector expenditure had become a priority, and health, education and population programmes had suffered as a result. In terms of the environmental benefits of population programmes, what was needed was better information on the interaction of social, environmental and economic factors, and a greater appreciation of the value of interventions such as improved reproductive health. Everyone was all too aware, however, that economic vagaries might be beyond the control of individual countries, making it even more important to improve understanding of the issue at the international level.

She touched on other areas contained in the Secretary-General's proposals as follows: population and education; data systems; gender equality and the empowerment of women; reproductive rights and reproductive health, including adolescent reproductive health; HIV/AIDS; partnerships and collaborations; and resources. Overall, countries' experiences towards implementing the ICPD Programme of Action had revealed some satisfying patterns. Those were moving towards the goals in the areas of reproductive health, infant and maternal mortality, life expectancy, education, women's rights, fertility, family size and population growth.

The proposals before the Commission were realistic, and were within the compass of existing institutions and mechanisms, she said. They required no dramatic policy initiatives, no technological breakthroughs, no drastic changes in human values. On the contrary, they reflected universal ethical standards; they were affordable; and for the commitment of a "tiny fraction" of the world's wealth, they would guarantee the poor and disadvantaged the privileges and perquisites which the more affluent took for granted. The proposals required only the will, the renewed commitment of all the countries represented in the preparatory committee, to "raise them from the page and turn them into reality".

JUNE PERSAUD (Guyana), speaking on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China, said that for developing countries, one of the major impediments to optimum implementation of the Programme of Action remained insufficient resource flows. The review of the Cairo Conference would assess the shortfalls, and the alarming trend towards a decrease in the flow of external resources. The Cairo target of $5.7 billion for external resources by 2000 was expected to fall short by $3.8 billion -- meaning only

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33 per cent of the ICDP target would be met. Cairo had recognized the need for financial resources as an important underpinning of the goals and objectives of the entire Programme of Action.

As the review was conducted, she said, it should be recognized that the paucity of resources had an impact on the pace and efficiency of implementation. For example, in the area of basic education for all children, sufficient support for developing countries in that regard could result in the achievement of basic education for all by the 2015 target set in Cairo. More focused collaboration and resource support could promote much earlier achievement of that and other goals. It was her delegation's expectation that the process of review would be enriched by continued commitment to the goals of ICPD and to the partnership through which its targets could become a reality.

KLAUS-HENNING ROSEN (Germany), on behalf of the European Union and Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Iceland, said human rights and fundamental freedoms were the first guiding principles of the Cairo Conference. Political commitment to the principles and goals of the Programme of Action had produced remarkable progress and must be enhanced in order to implement that agenda. Priorities for the five-year review were clear. They included: strengthening the focus on links between health and the environment; focusing attention more specifically on the needs of the poorest people; and calling for more action in the fields of maternal health, gender equality and HIV/AIDS. There was an additional concern that had been introduced since the conference and that was the situation of the countries with economies in transition. Those country's severe problems in the level of mortality and morbidity and in the health sector, as well as in reproductive and sexual health, required attention and support.

Concerning resource flows for population activities, he said the European Union reaffirmed its position that Governments had the main responsibility for creating an enabling environment for overall development growth. The mobilization of international resources was needed to support and augment the efforts undertaken by national governments, and should be targeted on the priority needs of the poor. In that regard, official development assistance (ODA) targets should be met. The share of population assistance in ODA should increase based on the scope and scale of programmes and activities undertaken to implement the Programme of Action. His delegation believed in the importance of effective and efficient use of any and all available resources for maximum sustainable impact. That was a mutual interest and a shared responsibility of all actors involved.

RYUICHIRO YAMAZAKI (Japan) said it was imperative to ensure the survival and safety of mankind and to protect their dignity from various threats, including violent crime, trafficking in women and children, exodus of

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refugees, infectious diseases, poverty, drugs, and environmental degradation.

He said his country would strengthen its contribution to assist developing countries in implementing the ICPD Programme of Action. Japan had launched a global initiative on population and AIDS in 1994, under which it would have provided $3 billion in assistance by the year 2000, by combining ODA loans, grant aid and technical cooperation into one package. To implement that initiative, the Government had undertaken intensive policy dialogues with developing countries, donors and international organizations. Through those efforts, it had also launched several projects in a number of countries. Japan had been the largest donor to the UNFPA and the International Planned Parenthood Federation since 1986.

Regarding support for women, Japan had pledged in 1995 to step up efforts to increase its development assistance, particularly in the priority areas of education, health and the participation of women in socio-economic activities, in order to improve women's social status and rectify gender inequality. In addition, Japan would implement projects aimed at contributing to gender equality, such as vocational training, literacy education, and support for maternal and child health.

He said his country also recognized the importance of the grass-roots activities being carried out by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Japan had intensified its support for grass-roots projects in its bilateral cooperation in the field of population support, which included enhancing dialogue with NGOs from project formulation onward. Establishing that kind of partnership was also important from a multilateral context.

Japan had undertaken a variety of measures to enhance activities in the area of reproductive health, he said. It provided equal education to both genders, and the health care system protected the health of mothers and children by distributing a handbook to women upon pregnancy and availing them of the opportunity to seek counselling about pregnancy, childbirth and child care. Those measures enabled women to make informed choices, and had resulted in a decline in infant and child mortality rates. In the coming years, Japan, like many developed countries, must deal with a rapidly ageing population and the trend toward fewer children.

YANG KUIFU (China) said leaders in his country had made it clear that population was the key and most important issue in realizing China's sustainable development strategy and the issue needed to be understood and addressed from a broader perspective. There should be harmony between economic development, population stabilization, natural resources protection and sound ecological environment. The Government supported the participation of women, youth and NGOs in implementing and monitoring its population programmes.

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Developing countries were still confronted with barriers in implementing the Programme of Action, he said. Those barriers included political, economic, cultural and financial factors. Those barriers should be eliminated through effective work and international cooperation. The stabilization of China's population was not only critical to the subsistence and development of the country, but also conducive to the stabilization of the world population. The Chinese Government would like to make concerted efforts with other countries to the further implementation of the Programme of Action and the stabilization of world population.

AKMARAL ARYSTANBEKOVA (Kazakhstan) said that documentation before the Commission had not shed sufficient light on a number of problems which affected the Central Asian region. The references to natural disasters referred to in the Secretary-General's reports did not sufficiently reflect the problems relating to the long-term impact of environmental catastrophes. It was necessary to note the negative impact such disasters had on the demographic situation in the region as well as on the general health of the population.

Also of special concern to Central Asian States, she said, was the problem of continuing degradation of the environment stemming from the tests conducted at the former Semipalatinsk nuclear facility, the burial of radioactive waste from the former Soviet Union, the drying up of the Aral Sea, and the rise in the level of the Caspian Sea. Another problem was the large flow of refugees and displaced persons, which put a significant strain on the development of human resources. These issues should be taken into account in regard to population and development.

Y. N. CHATURVEDI (India) said his country's population policy had been contextual and broad-based. It had never treated population as "a number game". Rather, it had sought to stabilize the population at a level consistent with requirements of social and economic development.

He said the poor and underprivileged had been the object of prominent attention, and an extensive three-tiered health care system had been developed countrywide. Primary health care and much specialized health care was free of cost to all those who needed it. Primary health care was delivered through rural sub-centres (one for every 5,000 people) and the primary health centres (one for every 30,000 people). Indeed, India had been developing a liberal policy framework for both health and population issues. In order to ensure that abortions were not used as a method of contraception, it was attempting to address illegal and unsafe abortions through competently trained medical personnel. A law had also been enacted to ban sex discrimination to prevent female foeticide.

In addition, he said his Government had initiated several programmes for promoting child survival and safe motherhood, education of girls and women's

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empowerment. Although notable progress in ensuring maternal safety had been recorded, much remained to be done. An educational programme, initiated in 1994, responded to the call for universalization of primary education. The programme focused on improving access to, enrolment in and retention by the school system of the girl child through educational incentives, flexible timings, gender sensitive curriculums and textbooks, more female teachers, among other measures. Over the years, India had moved from women's welfare to women's development to women's empowerment, with clear results.

The upcoming special session of the General Assembly should provide clear guidelines regarding future actions to be taken to enhance implementation of the ICPD Action Programme, he said. Further implementation must be guided by the development perspective, as well as by a rights-based perspective, which were complementary approaches. Further work by Governments to improve understanding of the links between globalization, poverty and migration was required. At the same time, such studies should not further restrict the flow of immigrants. After all, in a truly globalized world, the free movement of labour must be encouraged. Governments should, therefore, review legislation that resulted in excessive control in that area.

Concerted efforts were required to ensure the eradication of poverty and sustained economic growth, as well as to ensure that the international economic environment was supportive of the efforts of developing countries in that regard. There was an urgent need for developing countries, with the assistance of the international community, to implement programmes to guarantee a minimum level of consumption for their citizens, especially the poor and disadvantaged.

SUH DAE-WON (Republic of Korea) said that growing world population still posed a serious problem. Even though many parts of the world had achieved a considerable decrease in fertility rates, the world population was still growing by 77 million per year. Family planning services, especially in developing countries, should be made available for the reduction of fertility rates. Efforts should be made to implement the Cairo commitment to provide proper reproductive health care for all no later than 2015. In addition, the ageing of the world population caused particular concerns for many countries and efforts should be made to develop public social polices to establish a social safety net for older people.

He added that enhancing gender equality and empowerment of women was the heart of the Programme of Action. Without improving the status of women, there could be no real progress in achieving sustainable development. Women were recognized as a fundamental force in eradicating poverty and maintaining the stability of families. The review of Cairo should therefore focus on common efforts to enhance correct understanding of the role of women. Also, the review should help mobilize financial resources required for meeting the Cairo commitments.

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ELZA BERQUO (Brazil) said that full adoption of the Cairo agenda meant a complex exercise in the realm of public policies, monitoring and adjustment. Implementing the ICPD Programme of Action required initiatives over a wide range of public policies directed at the promotion of equity and sustainability. It also required programmes related to population distribution and migration, citizenship and respect for human rights.

In the period since the Cairo Conference, profound changes and great challenges had emerged, she said. The period had also been an important phase with respect to consolidating democracy after the political instabilities of the late 1980s/early 1990s. A fundamental task of the new administration was controlling chronic inflation and monitoring recovering economic growth. Also vital was the establishment of new norms to guide the economic opening begun in 1990, and the resulting constitutional reforms. Most pressing, however, was the need to design poverty and inequality reduction measures and ensure more efficiency of the social sectors.

A favourable environment for the implementation of the Cairo Conference was gradually established, she said, however, the stabilization strategy had been affected by global financial turbulence, requiring measures of a recessive nature. The risk to the adopted strategy became more acute by August 1998. Political difficulties also developed in the structural reform agenda, designed in 1994. The time-frame for the evaluation of national implementation of the goals of the Cairo Conference, in the second part of 1998, coincided with a new macroeconomic environment, with had brought even heavier fiscal and credit demands.

She said that the last four years had brought relevant advances in Brazil regarding implementation of the ICPD recommendations, which constituted a framework for future actions and in-depth evaluation and reorientation of policies. Clear progress had been observed with respect to consolidating the health system. Those steps forward created an enabling environment for improving reproductive health services. At the same time, education had been defined as a priority, and targets were identified for achieving universal access to primary and secondary schools. Great emphasis had also been given to improving the quality of education.

A new institutional architecture was also under development in the areas of poverty reduction, labour retraining and agrarian reform, she said. Although the emigration of Brazilians was a recent phenomenon, innovative approaches had already been designed to address it and new rules presided over the situation. The last four years had also witnessed the expansion of participatory social accountability mechanisms, aimed at monitoring social sector policies.

M. AMANULLAH, State Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Bangladesh, said that, although his country's achievements in the population sector were

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considered exemplary, there was still much that needed to be done. Resource constraints had been and continued to be the main obstacle in attaining the desired goals. That was true for many developing countries. Two years following the Cairo Conference, the flow of resources had become stagnant and since 1998 it started tapering off. Significantly, developing countries had been more forthcoming in mobilizing domestic resources instead of depending on international assistance.

The donor community had a critically important role in financing population activities, he said. In many countries, funding for population activity was donor-driven. Without adequate resources, the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action would falter. In addition, given the responsibility for supporting national level implementation, an increase in resources for UNFPA was a must. In preparations for the special session the international community must examine how far it had come and where it should go in the future. It also needed to make a renewed commitment and firm determination for the long journey ahead.

SISWANTO AGUS WILOPO (Indonesia) said that during 1998 about 96 per cent of the total population growth had originated in the least developed regions of the world. That should provide a clear indication of the peril that laid ahead if the international community did not employ greater efforts to implement the goals of the Cairo Conference -- particularly its development dimensions. If those efforts were not effective, the battle against growing disparities between developed and developing countries, poverty escalation and instability, would become a far greater problem in the near future.

The early momentum to fulfil commitments of Cairo was impressive, he said. Many developing countries initiated new programmes to address population concerns. Yet, those programmes had not yet been as effective as necessary largely due to the lack of information, education, communication and services. It was important to build on the successful lessons of some developing countries and make such information more universally available. Achieving that objective required a strengthened and renewed commitment by the international community to assist the developing countries through partnerships to help formulate policies and programmes and to help implement the provisions of the landmark agreement reached at the Cairo Conference.

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