PRESS CONFERENCE BY SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Press Briefing
PRESS CONFERENCE BY SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
19990630
OF UNITED KINGDOM
At a Headquarters press conference this morning, the Secretary of State for International Development of the United Kingdom, Clare Short, said that central to her Government's international development strategy were the commitments reached at the great United Nations conferences of the 1990s and the targets that had then been reaffirmed by the development committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Among those had been the reduction by half of the world's poor by 2015, the provision of basic quality education, basic health care and reproductive health care, sustainable development and gender equality.
Ms. Short is the United Kingdom's representative at the meeting of the General Assembly special session, from 30 June to 2 July, on the five-year review of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD+5) held in Cairo in 1994.
She said her Government had given an increased commitment to international development, both financially and substantively, so that when positions on trade, investment and debt were taken, development interests could be considered, particularly as they related to British interests. In their view, that was both right in terms of the United Kingdom's commitment to social justice, as well as being the only way to proceed to be able to build in a stable and sustainable manner for the next generation.
Ms. Short said her Government's objectives for the ICPD+5 was to accelerate achievement of the targets set in Cairo. There should be more international collaboration, firmer action on the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and more sex education and confidential advice and assistance to young people. The international community should also take a less punitive attitude and offer help to women who had resorted to illegal abortions, and recognize that if reproductive health care is a human right and a women's right, then basic health-care systems should be in place throughout the developing world.
She noted that the Cairo Conference had been an important milestone in changing attitudes to population, as the international community moved beyond an obsession with numbers and population control to a concentration on the rights and well-being of people, including the poorest people, especially women and children. Another major shift, she added, was a recognition that reproductive rights were human rights. There had been, in the name of population control, terrible abuse of human rights and, to combat that, there had been an international agreement out of the ICPD that that practice was unacceptable and unnecessary.
Educating a generation of children, particularly girls, in any country could be effective in population control, she said. When they grew up, they would have their children later -- infant mortality would decrease, they would have better coping skills, access to health care and education for their children. Another means of control, she stated, was access to reproductive health care and contraception for all people throughout the developing world. That, she observed, was essential for a systematic reduction of poverty, since economic growth could then be achieved faster than population growth.
Ms. Short pointed out that since the Cairo Conference, there had been shifts in international and national policies, and the international community had transferred its focus from targets to respect for individual's rights and choices. One of the major achievements was a worldwide recognition that female genital mutilation was unacceptable.
Her Government believed, however, that implementation of some of the agreements reached in Cairo had been slower than was desirable, she said. Two hundred million people still had no access to contraception. Also, the HIV/AIDS pandemic continued to spread, causing major loss of life and life expectancy, particularly in Africa where there was an average loss of 20 years of life expectancy in many parts of the continent.
The ICPD+5 would have to address that since there was currently no cure for the disease, she said. Progress would have to be made through the development of a vaccine or another method to contain its spread, especially among women. But, in the meantime, the success that Thailand and Uganda had achieved through education and prevention to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS should be used as a model. In order to make much greater progress and protect large numbers of people from possible infection, she added, more cooperation was needed throughout the international system.
Ms. Short also noted that, since Cairo, there had been no progress in reducing incidents of maternal mortality -- one-half million of women died as a result of pregnancy every year. That was one of the real measures of underdevelopment and loss. The solution to the problem, she noted, was the provision of basic health-care systems throughout the developing world, not just token projects, and there must be skilled midwives to deliver babies. The World Health Organization (WHO) must make a greater contribution with regards to establishing, collaborating and implementing standards to deal with the problem.
Another challenge that needed to be addressed was that 1 billion young people worldwide between the ages of 14 and 25 -- and the largest number ever -- were sexually active. Young people currently accounted for one half of those persons being infected with the HIV/AIDS virus, and one half of those were women. She reiterated the importance of access to sex education, pointing out that the world could not go on with the hypocrisy of bombarding
United Kingdom Press Conference - 3 - 30 June 1999
young people with sexual images, yet keeping them ignorant on the issues of protection and prevention against pregnancy and disease.
Another painful issue that needed to be addressed was abortion, Ms. Short stated. Everyone wanted to minimize abortion, but the reality was that 15 per cent of maternal deaths were abortion-related. Women should be given access to contraception, as well as provided with care, not punishment, so they would not resort to abortion. In addition, more rational thinking ought to be given to the question, including consideration of the incidence of rape.
Responding to a correspondent's question on differences in views among participants, particularly opposition from the Vatican on the use of contraception, Ms. Short noted that her Government remained optimistic about the outcome of the special session and progress being made in consideration of the issues before the ICPD+5. She could not give any assurance that there would be fair progress on all the issues important to her Government, but all the signs were there that that would occur, since many of the participants in the special session had already been working with and were committed to the same issues as the United Kingdom.
Another correspondent asked whether there had been indications of a shortfall in the financial goals of the Cairo Conference. Also, what was expected of developing countries that would indicate more commitment to the goals of the ICPD+5?
Ms. Short said that when the subject of progress in the reduction of poverty was raised, the developing world requested more money, while the developed countries wished to see more effective reform. Both were needed. However, it would be wasteful to provide aid to governments that were not embracing reforms that would systematically reduce poverty. On the other hand, regarding those countries that had implemented reform programmes thus accelerating human progress, the provision of aid was certainly useful. What was now needed, she added, was a new determination to make progress. The various publics in the donor countries would also be willing to increase aid to the developing countries if reform policies and practices in place could be seen to reduce poverty.
Would she still consider the ICPD+5 a success if there was no agreement on the issues she had mentioned and that had been the sore point so far? a correspondent asked Ms. Short.
She said that, as far as she was concerned, it was already a success. What was needed now was a reaffirmation of the ICPD so that what had been accomplished so far would not be lost, as well as the determination for faster progress in implementing the agreements made in Cairo. There had already been agreement on the issues that she had mentioned, she stressed, and advances had already been made since the Cairo Conference. She hoped that there would even be further advances by Friday.
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