PRESS BRIEFING ON STATE OF WORLD POPULATION 2002

PRESS BRIEFING ON STATE OF WORLD POPULATION 2002

Women's access to contraception, information, and reproductive health services was vital in alleviating poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals, Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs told correspondents at a Headquarters briefing this morning.

Jointly launching the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report on The State of World Population 2002 with Stirling Scruggs, UNFPA Director for Information and External Relations, Mr. Sachs said the report showed how reproductive health, family planning, population and policy fed into all eight Millennium Goals.  Also a Professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia University, Mr. Sachs is the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Millennium Goals.

The report, he said, stressed that giving greater access to family planning services, contraception and reproductive health services was central in the overall struggle against poverty.  "This report sets it out better than anywhere I've seen it before.  It's succinct, to the point, and based thoroughly on documented studies," he said.

Countries that had succeeded in reducing fertility rates and population growth had experienced major boosts to overall economic development and poverty alleviation, he continued, adding that population policy would become a centrepiece in the overall project of achieving the Millennium Goals.

"That means putting at the core of the project issues of gender equality, women's rights, access to health services, including reproductive health services, the ability to limit family size and, critically, investments in improved health care, so that fewer children die," he said.  If fewer children died, poor families would be encouraged to have less children, since they would have more confidence that the ones who lived would survive to adulthood.

The report hit the nail on the head, he stressed, by focusing on population policy, reproductive health, investments in health more generally, gender rights and especially women's access to education and work.  All of those factors led to reduced fertility and slower population growth rates, and would produce huge results over time.  "This year's report will help to show the way forward."

Noting that the UNFPA must do without assistance from the United States so long as it included reproductive health services in its strategy, which he interpreted as a code word for "abortion", a correspondent asked how that would affect the agency goals.  Mr. Sachs replied that achieving reduced fertility and population growth rates depended on several other factors, including education for girls, women's rights to work outside the home, better health care, availability of contraception, family planning, and the ability to choose how many children they wanted.

Mr. Scruggs added that the document arising from the Cairo Conference on population stated that women with complications from abortion should not be treated as criminals, but should receive the medical care they needed.  The UNFPA did not support abortion services, but did support people suffering the consequences of unsafe abortions.

Responding to another question about resistance to its goals in the field, Mr. Scruggs noted that many countries had changed their laws to increase education as well as reproductive health services for women and had created others to punish violence against women.  The Islamic country of Iran, for example, had begun its reproductive health programme about 10 years ago, and now had one of the best in the world.

Questioned about the situation in Latin America, Mr. Scruggs said women in that region were much better educated now than in the past.  As a region, it was making great strides in reducing population growth, particularly in such nations as Mexico and Brazil.  Adding that girls and boys enjoyed notable equality in education in Latin America, Mr. Sachs noted that the total fertility rate there had fallen to 2.5 children per woman.

Another correspondent asked Mr. Scruggs to comment on the Bush administration's recent decision not to reaffirm the Cairo Programme of Action, and to withhold $34 million in previously promised funds to the UNFPA.  Mr. Scruggs said that decision had cut the agency's budget by 12.5 per cent, forcing it to reduce staff and cut programmes, although European donors had since made up about one-third of that loss.  He hoped the United States would rejoin the agency next year, since population was a critical development issue.

Mr. Sachs noted a growing recognition in United States politics that poverty alleviation should become part of its national security strategy.  President Bush had made that point repeatedly, certainly since the events of 11 September 2001, and the administration had been searching for effective ways to help poor countries achieve economic growth.

"The point I would stress to them is that helping poor countries reduce fertility and population growth rates, achieve education for girls, and productive work outside the home for women is a core part of a successful strategy.  I hope the administration will take a realistic view of the best ways to achieve poverty alleviation."    

* *** *